


they think loving is money in the hand

by abusedtrademarkemoji



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: BAMF Michelle Jones, Deputy Peter Parker, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Secret Identity, bc michelle on a horse is a look, its a wild wild west! au, that said i know v little about horses, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-05-21 18:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14920991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abusedtrademarkemoji/pseuds/abusedtrademarkemoji
Summary: peter knows a lot of things in his life to be true. the sun rises in the east, molasses is slow in january, michelle jones is the love of his life. what he doesn’t know is that michelle spends her free time costuming as mj watson, a hideously talented outlaw who ransacks the living daylights out of an arizona town. this is how he ends up a hundred miles deep in the apache pass with the devil herself, and how he learns that perhaps the things he thought were true are not at all what they seem.[in which peter falls for the same girl twice, in wildly different circumstances.]





	1. Chapter 1

Deputy Peter Parker has had enough of this cattle-stealing bullshit. However the rickety town of Safford, Arizona, has made other plans for this dry season, and so he spends his mornings calming the ranchers and his afternoons pressing fresh WANTED posters. He dutifully prints up sheet after sheet, claiming for the masked “MJ Watson”—an outlaw without fear. Some say she’s so crooked she could swallow nails then spit out corkscrews. Others claim she’s spoken to rattlesnakes on a first-name basis. It advertises for a $5000 bounty over her head. Preferably dead, too. While Peter thinks it’s a bit harsh, she is ruthless in her cattle rustling and Sheriff J. Jonah Jameson has a vendetta against a lady overpowering him. The man believes that women have a certain place in this world and behind an organisation of crime is not it.

Peter has had many encounters with the notorious cattle-rustler, bounty hunting MJ Watson. He once looked her so dead in the eye he got whiplash the second he turned away. MJ made his blood heat up like a searing red branding iron. The kid couldn’t understand how people got away with burglary so easily. And at the rate she was doing it, he could never catch her. She’d ride away on a towering black stallion, leap over barbed wire like it was a candlestick. Peter felt useless. And the whole town probably looked down on him. He was already so insecure alongside the Sheriff it drove everything right back home to him. Peter was not the saving type. He might not have the right mindset, or perhaps the Deputy was simply born hero-quality deficient. He couldn’t even save himself, let alone Safford. Let alone Ben. 

Some experiences with her still manage to rattle him up to the point that he spends the whole day lashing out at loved ones. That was the only time he’d ever shout at the Sheriff, and he did it so instinctively that he wasn’t quite sure which part of him it crept out from. 

That day was one of the worsts. Peter had to answer for a request at a particularly sad family farm. They had the most infertile land, anything around them died unprovoked. It seemed as though whenever it rained in Safford, each acre would be hit save for their lot, and every few years a plague would sweep up a good most of their farm stock. Bad luck was cyclical with them. Truly, Peter swore an oath to God and the law, he frowned upon the corruption behind “trading” livestock out in the West. But for the Slattery family, it was hard to decipher what events exactly were due a series of unfortunate events and what should be taken on account of Trevor Slattery’s alcoholism. Pity is a thing of Peter’s weaknesses, so he can admit he turned a blind eye to the grand arrival of four “wandering” cattle upon the ranch. 

Peter wasn’t the only one who noticed the sudden appearance of cattle, MJ arrived in the nick of time to rob the cattle, and with that, the Slattery kids of their suppers for this year’s drought. She rode in chasing dawn, and Peter caught her tail while he was on patrol. 

“You can’t do this to the kids, I can’t let you.” Peter’s eyes squinted at her silhouette against the watercolour sunrise painted behind. His eyes burnt from sympathy and wind, bags were ashen under his eyes. He wandered laps around the Slattery ranch just waiting for a rustler. The Deputy hated that it had to be Watson, the last person he feels able to confront.

“Everyone needs to be held liable for their actions. Slattery knew that when he made is deal. Besides, it’s not to feed his kids anyway, you know he’s using it to fill up his forty rod bottle. He shouldn’t even have those children in his custody. He belts them every other night and works them like dogs to keep up the crops.” 

Her inky black duster whipped behind her and claps amid their rivalry, but the sound was hollow in his ears. He only heard her voice. 

“I don’t know what to do. What do you want me to do?” He pleaded, the essences of his morality swarmed against each other. In this very moment, Peter lacked both spine and principle. 

“Do nothing. It’s what you’re good at.” And the brutal scorn in her glare is so decisive and explicit Peter let her ride freely away, for he was too busy wondering how she knew him. He was mystified how in their first words to one another she wasn’t wrong in her analysis. In fact, Watson’s words were so wrought with truth that they spoke louder than any other used to call Peter. He hated it. The truth and the way she knew him in conjunction, they tore at his seams and blistered his core. As if they crossed each other in another life, one where she saw every flaw of his and he was held open to her. Then she robbed him of sense, discipline. For once in his life, Peter felt out of control and raw. Having been on the force for a whole year now, not a single time had Peter doubted his place and MJ Watson took that confidence to shred it without effort. 

Since the loss of Ben, Peter tried his best to stay kept up and together, neat and benevolent in his purpose. And in only a moment, away from the dilution of Safford’s racket, MJ saw through his filtrations, then broke him down inside out. He remained livid at the fact that she took his vision in the palms of her hands and told him it was wrong. Not only that, but she pried into the private cards of his life which he thought he’d thrown down years ago in forfeiture. Previously, Peter respected her insisting might, however his entire plane of view was fringed at the edges and when he looked at her he only saw red. 

In contrast, he much prefers a gentler lady, like that of Michelle Jones. 

Michelle, the ward of the Sheriff, is considered the town belle with her perfectly coiffed hair and dainty features. When it comes to speaking to women, Peter is at sea. He blushes under her eye despite having grown alongside her since she came to town at just six years old. Upon seeing her challenge the schoolteacher so many years ago for the cruel woman’s prejudice against her and another found Indian girl, Peter knew she was the one. With a moral compass so finely tuned, the beauty had bewitched the boy. She had humour like none before her and was as fair and pleasant as a dove. She kept ribbons tied around her hair and neck that always matched, she was so well put together. Michelle was a woman that had Peter over head and ears. 

From afar, he would watch her grow into a fine woman. Bitterly, he’d witness the way other men began to notice her too. Peter was aware how it was wrong to think of a girl so possessively, but he thought those leering at her were undeserving of her presence for they never appreciated a woman of colour when she first arrived to the small town of Safford.

On this particular day, the first of September, Peter checks in at the station to a rude awakening. One of the secretaries rushes up to him and shrieks out that his dear friend Michelle has been taken for ransom by an outlawed gang of cowboys. They demand a herd of a dozen cattle. And not any cattle either, they explicitly request for them to be taken from the Thompson Farm, where exactly 12 cows had suspiciously appeared overnight just this past God’s day. The cows are detailed to be delivered to the town of Agua Prieta, right along the border of Mexico. 

For the first time in his life, Peter finds himself wishing for a regular work day, one where he can clock in, file papers, clock out, and sleep soundly. If it weren’t for all these gambling jokes out on the shoot, Michelle would never have been taken. Looking around the room, it all seemed so representative of how Peter felt on the inside. Distraught, panicked, but there’s also static. Something electric that fills his lungs and puffs up his chest. The thrilling feeling is a slack string that’s darned from the top of his skull, sewn through his centre of gravity and ends in his toes which God pulls tight, forcing Peter to stand tall in the absence of Michelle. His lean shoulders fold back for him to take the necessary steps forward to the man behind the madness. 

The Sheriff bounds around the stuffy room in a fury, spewing “Why in the name of Christ, Michelle, how could they take my Michelle?” He uses one hand to rub at his gimmicky, unkempt mustache while the other is used to toss up the room.

Peter makes to compose him but first he lets the man throw papers from his desk and kick over chairs so that his anger is taken out on something that isn’t Peter. The once poised women present in the room are alarmed at his rage, and amidst the long-winded Jameson bout, he hears them gobble and cry in angst as they flower the walls. 

“Sheriff! Sheriff, please, you’ve got to maintain yourself so we can settle this out. She will be back, I’ll make sure of it.” Peter promises. It seems to awaken Jameson’s last stroke of sanity, but—and Peter thinks this is out of spite—the man pauses, looks Peter right down the barrel and takes his final demonstration of offense. Jameson picks up the kerosene lamp off his desk and throws it just over Peter’s shoulder. Peter is so used to the man’s malevolence towards him that he doesn’t even flinch. The glass shatters against the rough, unsanded walls and fills the room with the sharp smell of gas. The Deputy could feel the chips of glass nip at his leather heels and the back of his blue jeans. With the mixing odours of gas and saltwater tears, the air thins out as if they were at the Atlantic docks. And all the better, Peter thinks he could hear the horn of a freight train within the white buzzing in his ears. 

“Peter, you cannot even begin to understand the dickens of my worries. That’s my girl out there, alone and afraid without her Pa,” he laments.

Peter manages to suck up his shaking lip to say “Sir, if I may, you know Michelle good as anyone, the lady is well-off on her own ’cause she takes after the tree. She can handle herself until we can get to her. All we need is a ring of strong men to go and catch up. Let’s start off at Thompson’s ranch, seems to be the most rational place at the moment.”

The questioning of Flash proves to be troubling, but it does answer some odd ends. Turns out, Flash did not deal well with this year’s drought and hired some cowboys to steal some product from over the border to compensate. While this is not uncommon in the Southwest, it is frowned upon by authorities under technicality, though Sheriff Jameson tends to look the other way. For the economy’s sake, he says. 

“I swear, Flash, if my girl is harmed in any way because your scrawny ass thought to be selfish I will make sure you never get a dime from no one again.” The sheriff continues to spew his threats until Peter drags him away.

“Alright, let’s move on to assembling a team. I know as much as you may wish to save your daughter yourself, you’re going to have to camp here and prevent anyone else from being taken. I was thinking I lead with Barnes and Rogers behind me,” Peter announce and is met with the harsh laugh of Mr. Jameson. “What’s so funny, sir?”

“You really believe that you’ll be in charge of two men that served the North in the Civil War? Why you wouldn’t last a day out in the Apaches on your own. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve piggybacks you on the way home.”

Now Peter really tries not to be offended by Jameson, accepting insults practically is a part of his daily itinerary, but Peter feels ashamed of his lack of reputation and he wonders if the rest of Safford thinks this way of him too. Namely Michelle, whose opinion is of such importance to Peter that already he can feel his neck become slick with the anxiety of her potentially looking down upon him. 

They are at the town centre when it appears that of the 800 locals, a healthy chunk has clucked their way to the strip to hear of more news. It’s just past noon and the sun strikes Peter at such an angle that he has no shadow at all. Dry dirt settles around his heels and he can feel the watch of pitying citizens from the hairs of his forearms that are raised upright. Due to Safford being such an unestablished desert town, it has the ability for everyone to know everybody and their cousin. At present, Peter thinks this to be a disadvantage, everyone knows about his pining for that one particular missing girl. They’ve witnessed the way she peers over her fan at him and how he ushers her out of trouble’s way. Some odd of them have known Peter to ride a three day’s trip to El Paso and back only to shop for new books to gift her.

Sheriff climbs up to the platform of the Daily Bugle to announce the loss of his daughter, and a plead for voluntary men to embark to Agua Prieta for her saviour. Though her disappearance was only announced but four hours ago, it seems as though the entirety of Safford is already mourning, they look down at their boot tips and the residential star cowboys raise hands out of obligation, with Rogers, Barnes and Wilson piloting the pack. Yet even they seem apprehensive at the request to venture through the infamous Apaches. A courtesy applaud is made in their favour, until it is unkindly interrupted by a gunshot to the sky. In walks the elusive MJ Watson herself.

“So, big guy, heard you need some help,” she suavely claims. Her voice is syrupy and her hair flows around her like water. The combination makes Peter’s eyes dry from an emotion he can’t quite label. It looks like fury, it feels like fear. “Luckily, I can maybe shed some daylight to get your precious little girl back. But on a few conditions.”

“You witch,” the gravelly Sheriff vaunts to the woman sheathed in all black like a shadow that lurked behind you, from her spurs to the Stetson hat that restrains the volume of her wild locks. The strap of silk that is shadowed by her hat aids in protecting her identity as it covers her face, save for her pointed and narrow chin, wicked lips and the cuts that reveal her beguiling eyes. “You’re just mean enough to steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes. Why on this God-given Earth should I trust someone so crooked? With how foul you are, I just know you’d make off with the dozen and never again see the break of day here in Safford again. You ain’t nothing by a menace.”

“I’d take care of your girl, no worries. Hell, we go way back.” The tongue of hers replies so casually one could miss the implication of these words. To suggest that she is amicable with the Sheriff’s daughter is slander. Her conceit and history of bloodshed intimidates other veterans so much that in a few short moments, the earlier lauded volunteers slink a hundred people back in the crowd for hiding. Not a single sane man would gamble shaking hands with MJ, not with her criminal record. At least in the wilderness of the Apache Pass and the brambles of the Chiricahua, there is an inch of a chance that one could make it back, maybe less with the target of twelve cattle on their back. The presence of Watson diminishes that into fractions so small they would resemble rolled oats in the water, floating like dead men.

“Don’t you dare act like you know a lick about my Michelle. She’d never lose her sight enough to be caught exchanging with you.” Jameson licks his cracking lips to salvage what little of himself is left after this morning’s misfortune, and sweat drips from his thumping red temple. 

“Trust me, she does a lot more in a day than you’d ever believe. Best take my honour with that.”

“Like you have any honour in your devil blood. I’d never allow for her life to be left in the hands with the likes of a bandit.”

MJ saunters over to the Sheriff, where she leans forward onto the Bugle’s railing in front of him. Her icy stare tilts up at him from where she stands steps below. “As if a single man of Safford has even made it alive to Agua Prieta, let alone ventured through the Apache. Face your demons, I’m all you got, and my word is pure to see that your daughter makes it home safely and the herd finds itself back in the hands of the rightful.” The Sheriff seems to consider these facts while he weighs his next words. 

“I’ll go.” 

The crowd whirls to look over to the quiet voice of a pale freckled kid. Upon their attention, Peter falters under the heat of their gawking. Even so, he takes a life altering step forward and repeats, “I’ll go. I am a deputy under the law in which I have sworn an oath of loyalty and obedience. I vow to accompany MJ Watson to observe that she commit to her promises. I can bring Michelle home, I swear it.” He feels MJ tip her head to size him up in curiosity and she looks impressed with his vigor, if not in admiration with her coy smile. Whatever it may be, it throws Peter off, and he feels a wave of pressure hit him with such force he must take a half step back until it’s interrupted by his spurs clicking against a commoner’s own boots. There was a softness in her eyes that does not reflect the rest of her kit, and he wonders if anyone else had caught it too. 

“Well, son, I’d be surprised if you made it back, but you might just be the only one round here I trust enough with my daughter. At least if you’re not eaten alive first by this she-wolf.” The sheriff finalizes this order and some of the onlookers begin to disperse. Sheriff Jameson has never called Peter any term of affection before and so Peter’s ribcage swells up in pride. 

It’s clear as day that the Sheriff knew how much Peter has longed for his daughter; this fact is undeniable with the evidence of Peter always jumping to help, whether by carrying her books or bringing her fine teas. Hell, the whole town just about knew of Peter’s affections, and they lived vicariously through his attempt to keep her company. Either the lauded Michelle was blind, or she didn’t give a rat’s ass about the way the young boy had looked at her for the last decade. To be truthful, as much as Peter saw himself a man of the law and though he loved to play the friendly hero around the neighbourhood, there is a part of him that applied to be a deputy because he was a childish sixteen year old boy who wanted to see more and more of the Sheriff’s daughter. As Peter ages, he tries to convince himself that it was entirely for the sake of protecting Safford, but his mind always goes back to his first day on the job where he entered the station and Michelle had sat with her legs crossed primly on the edge of his desk. She had been waiting to wish him good luck on his first day and Peter had felt faint by her magnanimity. That itself was worth more than any paycheck since. Any of his doubts on entering the field vanished with her welcoming smile. 

“Let’s head back to the station to get this all sorted. Clearly, we have some form of officiation to have the likes of you sign by, woman. I need it in writing that you get the cattle to Agua Prieta, bring home my Michelle, and keep an eye on my boy Pete over there.” The Sheriff has shown more affection to his deputy in the last hour than he has in his whole life. Upon returning to the workplace, the Sheriff orders his secretary, Betty, to collect his words onto paper. “What is it that you want, sinner? Surely this isn’t out of the goodness of your heart…”

“Now that you’ve asked, I could name a few,” the intrepid MJ says, “one: my name is cleared. No more bounties or death sentences. Two: the town of Safford can no longer steal cattle. I want capital punishment for those that do. And, finally, three: women are given the same opportunity as men to represent the law as an authority alongside yourself, Sheriff.”

“I—the first one makes sense in this situation. The other two, those are rich. Are you telling me that you want me to punish those that rustle cattle? By God, you’d lose your pennies. You’d not have any income.”

“Perhaps.”

“And three,” J. Jonah Jameson is outright laughing at present, loud wheezing breaths accessorized with the occasional cackle. “Is that a bluff, or do you mean it for real play? A woman as a deputy? That’s ridiculous, why you must be studying to be a half-wit. Wouldn’t you rather make off with a sack of cash?”

“Any dollar you can offer I already have, so you can consider your daughter dead and gone if you can’t meet my proposal,” and MJ turns away from the orthodox man, tips her hat at Peter and takes her leave.

“Wait! Wait, we can figure this out. The first two I’ll make promise of it. The last however, if you can bring back my girl then you will have proved any woman can be man enough to serve the law. The third is conditional upon her return to me.” MJ does not seem impressed by his choice of words but there is a certain desperation in the Sheriff so unlike any Peter has seen before that she looks equally bewildered by it. Peter knew how much he loved his daughter, even more than Peter himself, but never would Peter believe to see him shake hands with the devil. 

“You’ll see her in no less than seven days,” and MJ Watson treads out the galley doors, leaving them to swing keenly in her wake. 

“Kid, you know you don’t have to do this, right? Last chance to back out is now, I wouldn’t judge.” Sheriff Jameson looks at Peter sternly, trying to emit his concern through his ragged appearance.

“I wouldn’t sleep a day in my life if I didn’t.”

The Sheriff holds his stare on Peter, trying to get a read of his mind and values, his endgame. “You best catch up to your chief, partner, at least before the dust settles.” The Sheriff nods in the direction of the still swinging doors. Peter bounds forward to join the outlaw at her heels. Is there an artful way to follow a woman you detest like she is your shepherd? Peter will never know. In the meantime, he’ll make do with what he hopes is a wrenching glare that lands on her back. 

“Uhm, so, Ms. Watson, what time do we leave? Should I pack a bag? Could I make it back to mine to say goodbye to my Aunt?” As much as he wants to sounds confident, Peter feels the very opposite. Even after so much time has passed between their first encounter, Peter’s toes still curl in anxiety around her presence. Not to mention he will be embarking on a life-threatening mission that could leave Aunt May to suffer a life sentence of loneliness. Just the thought alone makes his ears ring, in his world, the mere stuttered questions that barrel out of his mouth is already a feat in and of itself. 

“Tomorrow before dawn. Yes. Obviously, you should bring a kit. You’ve got 14 hours before we meet right back here. Have a good day, Deputy Parker.” Her response is so quick even through her radiating drawl that Peter’s knees wobble. A week earlier Peter would have spat on the ground upon she walked, and here he is favouring her. Peter already knew MJ Watson was different from other cowboys. From memory, he could recall that she was gritty when he saw her shoot the hat off a lecher feeling up a young girl at the saloon, he recognized her clout the moment his dear Michelle voiced her handsome opinion of the outlaw. Now he respected her for vowing to return Michelle at risk of her life. In fact, her ability to overcome any man in any game was similar to that of Michelle’s.

Peter’s mind wandered to the only instance he witnessed Michelle waste time to stand up to a lowlife felon, just as example.

There was a boisterous group of drunken men on the court of the saloon speculating the true identity of the masked MJ. Peter was accompanying Michelle on the way to her piano lessons when they kicked up a row. The pair overheard how one man thought that the tight leather of her garb would look even better on the floor, and another man joked about how he’d love to see her hands around something longer than a revolver. Ticking her last nerve, the first man carelessly said that women like her should sit pretty for her husband, and that whatever man let her go out like that is either senseless or horrible in the bedroom. Michelle turned to scrutinize the two. Peter thought he saw the light that came before death. She knew the effect she had on men and abused it to her advantage. Aiming her dainty parasol like sword to the offenders, she tapped the fence in front of them to absorb their slow attention. Eyes on her, she campaigned that “Ms. MJ Watson no doubt would not waste a second look on scamps like you. Don’t make such foul and perverse commentary on a woman, especially one who could kill all of you where you stood and yet you’d all still beg for more.” 

Michelle continued on her merry way, chin pointed up to the sun, with a stunned, infatuated Peter close behind. 

At present, Peter compliments Ms. Watson for challenging the Sheriff—something he could never do. She made a stand for all of her gender and race when she demanded the end of corrupt cattle distribution. Two strides, one day. And most of all, she assured the safety of his long-time friend and life-time love, Michelle Jones. She ticked all of Peter’s boxes today and he will be the first to admit: Peter Parker likes strong women. An inkling of him is already feeling shockingly soft on the woman he previously detested. He already knows how he will struggle to sleep tonight. He’s half-worried for Michelle and half-worried for himself. 

The next week will be long and interesting. 

Though Aunt May expresses her apprehension of his future partner being the infamous Watson, she is excited for his travels and encourages how “this might just be the way to get Michelle to take a shine on you. I know I wouldn’t be able to resist my saviour. You should’ve seen how dashing your uncle was with a hat and horse. Sakes alive, he’d win me over with just a nod of his head, I can’t imagine how she would react to you travelling for days just to find her.” Her words provide the confidence he needs to buckle down on this journey, despite the supercilious pinching of his cheeks before a departing hug. 

At four ante meridian, Peter hauls his bag on his young steed, Karen, and ventures toward town centre. He is met with Anthony Stark, the property and business owner of nearly half the town. And sometimes, when he feels like it, Mr. Stark plays as Peter’s mentor.

“When Pepper told me about your _voluntary_ suicide mission I could not believe your stupidity. The Apache Pass—what in Sam Hill were you thinking? That shit is haunted beyond words. On that note, you couldn’t track an elephant in the snow, all ’cause your survival instincts rotted away before puberty. And then you go and add that she-devil to the mix. I know you can’t keep trouble from visiting, but you don’t have to offer it a chair.”

“Are you done yet?” Peter grins.

“Aw, come here,” and Mr. Stark reels the kid in for a slapdash hug. Mucking up his hair, the entrepreneur laughs away the growing moisture of his eyes. “You know Underoos, I’d have done just the same thing. Your Michelle is just like my Pepper, damn firecrackers the two of them. You’d be lucky enough to have her, but from here on out you’ve got to make a promise to me. Don’t do anything I would do.” Peter laughs at the absurdity of his meaning but is pleased all the same. For every ounce that Mr. Stark is patronizing, he does care an awful lot. 

“Moving on, I packed you some things to get you by on that damned trail.” Mr. Stark drags out a plethora of supplies from his Conestoga wagon, bound up in thick rope and tarp. 

“Gee, Mr. Stark, shoulda left some of these to sell in your general store.”

“Ha ha, very funny. You know most people would say thank you in this kind of situation. Besides, I wouldn’t waste all this on you, Steve paid for most of it. So you better make it back here to tell him how much you appreciate it.” And with that, Mr. Stark leaves him with a pat on the back, just as the twisted MJ makes it in with a zipping gust of wind behind her. The sky was a black sheet behind her like curtains hanging at the rear of a stage, only lightening in the far corners of the horizon. Peter eyes her up, trying to see past her silk mask. If only she didn’t work so hard to stay anonymous. He’d feel a lot more comfortable in this state of affairs had they been on the same playing ground. Here, Peter can’t help but sense he will always be two steps behind.

“Y’all up and finished here? We’ve got some places to be now.” She supplies, a dozen cattle in tow behind her. 

“Yeah, yeah, let’s get going,” Peter returns, they saddle up and make their way before the sunlight catches up with them. Peter mounts his Arabian mare to match MJ’s pace and they turn their backs to the town. It diminishes out of sight as they press on and soon it is nothing but a speck washed in golden sand. The wind is a whisper beneath their feet and the stars begin to dim once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for taking the time to read this! spideychelle fam is SO good to me and i really appreciate you all.   
> also if you see any mistakes lmk and i'll love you forever and ever. and don't hesitate to reach out if you don't understand some of the cowtown slang, cause it can be confusing sometimes haha.
> 
> hopefully i'll see you come back again soon! xx


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so happy with everyone's feedback! reading them makes my whole week and is super encouraging when i write. hope you like this next chapter. it's super dialogue heavy tho, you have been warned xx

It takes all of twenty three minutes of silence until the fuse of Peter’s internal filter blows and his nerves tickle embarrassingly at his throat.

“So do you come here often?”

MJ gives him a single questioning look taciturn enough that it could probably lead souls across the River Styx.

“Not like, do you come _here_ often,” he blushes around the lewd connotation behind his question. Peter only wanted to make small talk to fill the empty void of sound that’s accompanied only by a background of blowing tumbleweeds and the croaks of vultures. “More like, do you travel through the Apaches often… to get to Agua Prieta,” the boy patters. 

MJ wants to ignore this, but the part of her that actually does enjoy Peter’s character springs back from Michelle and bounces into the emotionless MJ Watson. She privately sighs to herself, as imperceptibly as she can manage, and lets out that she visits “every once in a few whiles.” The woman can only hope her ambiguity can wedge a distance between her partner and herself.

Instead, she let the dam break.

“Does that mean a few times a year? Or every few weeks. It makes a big difference.”

“What’s it to you?” she asks plainly, the exasperation in her voice thick and tangible.

“Well, the information would help me determine the chances of survival between Michelle and I. And to me that’s very important.”

“Michelle will undoubtedly be fine. You, I ain’t so sure about,” she humours. Again she has struck the wrong chord and his response is a humoured, vibrating staccato note against the dark conversation. It’s near impossible to throw him off his rhythm by simple social cues. 

“You mean you’ll kill me? Or that I’m pathetic enough to die out here,” he jibes, “’cause while both options run a high risk of truth, there is a hundred percent probability that either answer will offend me.”

MJ can’t help but laugh at his unwitting charm. So what if she likes self-deprecation? It’s funny. Peter is so calculated that he comes off as a whole square, but that only delights MJ. She appreciates his incompetence of keeping cool. The woman tips her Stetson forward to shield her joy from him, she can’t have Peter recognizing her laugh or her jesting or her voice. “Why are you here? What’s your deal, man?” her voice drizzles out of her throat with a certain zeal that she can’t promise if she’s heard it before. Michelle can’t decide whether or not she is prepared for the answer, but she definitely cannot continue this trip with her curiosity whistling through every pore of her, like the steam of a freight engine. It makes her muscles stiff and unnatural, leaving her feeling trapped under his watch. This sensation is yet another reason why she put her mask on in the first place. The essence of her life was being squeezed into too small day dresses and hushed away with the ivory keys that masked the influence of her own voice. 

“Because I can’t lose her. I’d not want to be around no more if she wasn’t there beside me.”

“Right.”

“Was that not the answer you wanted to hear?” Peter almost looks annoyed from behind her. 

In reality, MJ’s not sure what she wanted him to say. 

She halts her horse and leads it to face him and in turn his mare slows too. “There is no right answer.” And she says this with such a conviction that his face breaks. If he appeared closed off before, now he is sealed like the masonry cement that joins brick. With Peter’s good humour from earlier, Michelle Jones realized it was possible for her to laugh as MJ Watson, and that maybe this trip would not be as dreadfully awkward as she assumed it to be. After the rigidness of this conversation she rules out that chance. 

MJ cannot recall another moment where she was so unsure of herself. Unexpectedly, Peter altered her plans and threw her centre of gravity off-kilter. She expected to take the cattle single-handedly and return them to the border, then make home as Michelle. It was flawless. Now she must force herself to nanny Peter. Since moving to Safford and being welcomed into the Sheriff’s home, Michelle has spent nearly every moment with an unburdened confidence. Growing up with a lack of a personal background, especially with her ambiguous racial characteristics, has not been kind to her. But the town warmed up to her and she knew it wasn’t by sheer luck. She took pride in her ability to charm people with her observant cleverness. Michelle earned their respect through benevolence, intelligence and a heart so deep it goes unrivalled. Until Peter. She cared for him without question, treasuring their friendship since it had begun. Aside from the Sheriff, Peter was the only other to treat her as equal as he would any white male, and all without provocation. 

The day she played MJ and tore his heart out of chest was the worst of her life. But she was so angry at him. To act blind to the corruption, indifference was aiding the offender and Michelle could not tolerate it.

That day she finalized that Michelle and MJ were two different people with different alliances, morals, and expectations. All they would share was her heart. No longer could Michelle’s obligations of loyalty and kindness interfere with her second identity. Perhaps Michelle might miss Peter’s presence in her life, but MJ would not dare to let such a facetious boy into her inner-circle. 

She allows herself time to ponder over which answer to the earlier question would be correct, or if there was even an answer to please her altogether. While they continued to make their way south, she counted the patches on the neck of her silver dapple stallion and let the conversation marinate in her head. Michelle would have been flattered by that answer, but MJ Watson, she was left bewildered. She felt offended, a dark emotion stewed inside her molten and thick. The idea that Peter could adore his friend Michelle and yet despise her as MJ was laughable, but she could not pinpoint what made her tick. Was she angered because Peter didn’t care much for MJ, or due to the idea of Peter disliking the entirety of her being—the amalgamation of a pure Michelle and a troubled MJ. 

Peter was the boy who divided these counterparts entirely, and yet here he was, riding beside her and reuniting the two again. Could Peter not like all of her? And would he be angered by the reveal? Michelle was adrift and left stranded, utterly disappointed in herself for acting so girlish when she should play the bold and brave MJ Watson. She convinced herself that this called for strategy, one where MJ contorts herself away from Michelle again, to become an alternate entity who abhors Peter.

Her eyes sweep over to Peter who jaunts alongside her. He usually seems so unbothered by whatever struggles life throws his way, but now his eyebrows crease in worry and his jaw is tight with his thin lips caving together. His eyes are hardened and the bags that sit below it hang long and purple with the blood that flows beneath the thin veil of skin. Though they’ve only been at it for no longer than an hour, his face is blemished by the sand that whips at him as it is thrown by the creaming wind. Unlike him, she has a protecting black Chantilly lace mask like a folded bandana that is tied behind her head and covers her face from nose to chin. It shields her from the dust storm as much as it protects her from the fate of Peter discovering who she very well could be.

Additionally, she wears suede chaps over the worn out jeans that turn white at the joint where the jockeys of her saddle have rubbed away at the raw denim and friction has torn new-born holes into it. Over top, MJ has a tough black silk corset to support herself, with gold flossing and beaded gussets between the cording. She takes pride in her own handiwork and appreciates the glow it gives her. Certitude is born behind her statue and it is unwavering. 

MJ aimed to look like she was to attend a funeral; she just wasn’t sure whose procession it would be. 

After reviewing what makes MJ so great, she can’t help herself when she asks, “Why Michelle? What’s so great about her anyway?”

Peter tilts his head to side eye her, curiously checking if this is another trick question. “Because she’s my best friend. And I’m in love with her.”

MJ gives a gentle gasp at the information and an unbearable heat immerses her body in engorging flames that eat her whole. She chokes on a rapid intake of air and the world sucks her in from beneath her horse’s hooves. A shaft is driven through her spine and she sits upright immediately. 

“You don’t have to laugh, okay? I know it’s far-fetched and I’m punching but I can’t help how I feel.” Peter blushes hard under his hat and he squints against the wind. He leans forward so that he is nearly lying limp over the neck of his mare. 

“I-I’m not laughing. I just wasn’t expecting that,” she kindly addresses. Again, an unrecognizable feeling tethers her to her spot. Peter loves her. Rather, he loves Michelle. 

Peter is not impressed by her admission, he clearly isn’t sold. A pause in conversation hangs suspended by the intermission between query and verdict. 

“Does she know?” MJ probes with eyes averting the shifting gaze of Peter.

“Well, everyone knows.”

“That’s not what I asked. Does she know? Have you explicitly told her?”

“You really don’t have to be so goddamn condescending about it. No, I haven’t told her. That would be so embarrassing, I couldn’t bear to face her again.” Peter looks half torn between annoyance and humiliation. His discomfort pours into their dialogue and frustrates MJ to no end. His lack of self-assurance is pathetic and ugly when worn by his features.

Now MJ is too tired to be nice to him about it. Is she flattered? Of course. Extremely so. At the same time, Peter is so rude to her counterpart that she really can’t see past anything but his harshness toward her. Her eyes tip so extravagantly from behind her mask that her irises resemble marbles rolling across an unlevelled floor. “Oh piss off, Parker. I just wanted to know. If you don’t want to tell me about your life, then you can be mum about it. It ain’t like I truly care, anyhow. Things couldn’t be any worse between us. It’s dead matter to me.” This haughty reply forces him to clench his jaw, and thus a sharp line is created on the canvas of pale skin.

“You are Old Scratch incarnate.”

“Don’t call me the Devil, boy. The second I see you in hell, you’d best regret that.” Her comment seals away the rest of their conversation until mid-morning, when they stand at the mouth of the Apaches.

“We can take a short break for now, but after we head through and line the mountains,” she adds. 

“Line the mountains? Why would you choose the most difficult route? It’s already tough enough on our horses just to make the trip anyway, this is absurd.”

“You ain’t the only person who wants me dead, kid. We need to avoid Fort Bowie at all costs. And the Cochise aren’t gonna like some poor white boy like you hanging around their territory.” Peter looks as if he’s realized he has no idea what ground he’s walking on and there is no other way to prepare him for the dangers that come next except for keeping MJ at his side. 

He must admit she’s right when he stutters out his pitiful “fine.” Decanting some water for their horses, Peter looks out into the wide expanse of varied foliage. What used to be only cacti has turned into a surfeit of plant life. Rosewood shades the agave, and different species of yucca plants strike through the sugar bush and evening primrose. He appears amazed at the sight and the sweet hums of bounding grasshoppers complete the delicacy of the moment. 

MJ notices his fervent appreciation and comments, “Puerto del Dado.”

“Huh?”

“It’s Spanish. The original name for the Apache Pass. It means ‘Pass of the Die.’”

“Wow, sure gave me confidence with that one.”

“If only a translation is needed to scare you I can’t picture what you’ll actually be like once we get in there.”

His mouth ticks but otherwise he is able to reel past her malice. He takes another long look at the mouth of the pass, Michelle can’t quite decipher what he feels at the moment.

“Don’t worry too much,” she’s watching his horse heartily wash down her thirst as she says this, “I couldn’t let you die in there anyway.”

“Why not?” He is clearly surprised at her honesty. “Wouldn’t it make this so much easier for you.”

She hesitates before giving and almost inaudibly states, “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for it, besides, I don’t think Michelle would like that very much.”

Peter’s eyebrows fly up his forehead at her atypical release of gentleness, but he doesn’t say much else. The loose chains of the cattle ring in the breeze, playing a beautiful melody to the ugly reality wherein she cannot—does not—care for her best friend. MJ wonders if he feels a shift in the atmosphere of their relationship and she hopes he won’t put much weight into her reasoning. 

They mount their horses yet again and proceed to hit the pandering trail that leads to nowhere. It is unlevelled; dust only interrupted by the rocks that have crumbled from the hanging, obtuse cliffs. The no man’s land is ruled by a woman and her horse, closely followed by a boy on a martyr’s mission.

To survive in such a treacherous climate, it’s essential for each moment to be ensured by some measure of security. In an attempt of staying protected, MJ commands that they hug the wall of high boulders to play it on the safe side while under some cover. 

“Has she talked to you about me?” For such a dangerous, sullied landscape, Peter opposes it with a gaudy and childish conversation. It sounds like schoolyard speak to Michelle, but she opts to answer it regardless. 

“Michelle, right? Yeah, I guess. Passingly.” This is enough to make Peter’s mouth blaze into a smile as bright as the sun reflecting off his deputy badge. It’s wide across his face to the point that it looks like it hurts. His grin is so great and silly it makes his comically large ears look small. 

“What did she say? Good things, I hope.”

“She said you were…nice, yeah. You were nice.” MJ wants to make this as detached and impersonal as possible without deliberately hurting his feelings. That said, there is no formal and correct fashion to do so. Peter’s face drops, but he does not continue to probe her. He spends only a moment with the lids of his eyes drooping, the lashes tickling his lower line, before he side-eyes her just as it had formerly. Though her sigh of relief is tinged with dissatisfaction, Michelle is impressed by his maturity when he disguises his hurt and delegates a new conversation. 

“Do you have anyone like I have Michelle?”

MJ is enraged at this question. The fact that he dares to claim her as his own, as if she was property of land, is enough to make her quicken the pace of her horse if only to be farther out of his reach. She doesn’t even wish to see his face for yet another brief second, it would only anger her, then make her pity him in a matter of seconds. 

“Can you stop fucking talking about her like that?”

Peter’s stare is as blank as the cloudless sky. “What d’ya mean?” He asks in a very plain way. 

There is something despicable in the way he makes her feel these two estranged and ugly feelings in a sloppy combination. “First of all, you don’t have her. She ain’t yours and you don’t own her like you would any land or animals or guns. Second, You talk about her like she’s some porcelain doll. She’s a person, Parker, a real, living and breathing thing just like yourself. Stop acting like she’s as good as or better than anyone else. Lastly, why would you even care to ask me this at all? Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if we just kept this…relationship… detached and professional?”

“I’m just trying to figure out your motives, Ms. Watson.”

“Well, you heard my motives in the Sheriff’s office.”

“Okay, so you’re trying to tell me killing-machine bounty hunter MJ Watson just wants to clear her name? What does that give you, I’d be real surprised if you just trotted off into the sunset and never gone and done a foul act ever again.” 

MJ sighs at his clinging words. “I’m not about to lay out everything on the table.”

“That’s not fair. I told you ’bout Michelle.”

“And I didn’t ask you too.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“I mean I didn’t ask you to tell me that y-you… that you loved her.” Having to utter those words makes her thighs clench from indignity, and her horse mistakes her reaction as a command to gallop faster. There is something disorienting about saying it out loud. It makes it all the more real and it tastes like burnt coffee from where it swishes around in her mouth.

“Love,” he corrects. “Present tense.”

“Oh, fuck off. That there is called pretentious. You’re pretentious.” Any discomfort she previously had melts away from his attitude. She can’t believe she has to deal with this for a week. A whole seven days. A mere few hours into the 170 that they are forced to share and she already wants to squat her head behind a kicking mule. She can’t comprehend how Peter is tolerable when she’s Michelle, but so explicitly annoying when she’s MJ. “Even still, I didn’t ask you to moan on and on about her hair and breath and school marks.”

“I didn’t say any of those things!” Peter’s voice cracks around his exclamation and if intimidating was what he was going for, then he missed by a distance immeasurable.

“Maybe, but that’s what I heard.” Disinterested and bored are two of ten words that could describe MJ at this conversation. 

“Are you deflecting? From my question.” He looks at her with curiosity melting from his eyes. MJ almost, key word here being _almost_ , thinks he looks cute like that with the humour and interest of his face brightening his nature. 

“Okay, fine.” Michelle gives in. “Harry Osborn, if we go by logic alone, it’s probably him that I end up with.”

“ _Harry Osborn_? You’re gonna jump the broom with that guy?” Peter’s jaw drags from behind his horse’s hind legs.

“What’d he ever do to you?” Michelle is skeptical of Peter’s animated revulsion of Harry. She couldn’t recall the pair ever having a negative interaction before.

“I just hate him, alright? He’s so cocky, meaningless, a glorified mutton-puncher. And dull as dishwater at the same time.” She’s not sure if she hears correctly, but after that it sounds like he muttered his doubts on how a guy like Harry could ‘get with a woman like her.’

“He might be boring, but he’s none of the other things.”

“Harry only gets by because of his rich dad.”

This comment really drives MJ up the wall. “He’s one of the few that actually earned their fortune the hard way, not by stealing cattle like other people. And Harry is extremely helpful. He taught me how to ride, and he can’t possibly be meaningless. That’s the guy that helps me track down marks for the warrants I have.”

Peter remains apathetic. At least he seems to be absorbing a teaspoon of the buffet of facts that MJ force-feeds to him. Somewhere in that thick skull, MJ figures there must be a brain. Not a particularly engaged and open one, but it’s a brain nonetheless. That is arguably more than what she could say for a majority of the people she has met in life. The boy trots his horse closer to her own, the five cattle that follow him are pulled to her seven in accordance. “You never said if you liked him, though.” 

Perhaps MJ was a tad too quick to judge his intelligence, because Peter proves to be deceivingly perceptive. MJ didn’t even notice herself that she avoided that fact. For once, she feels like the one in the trenches, crawling through the mud of intimacy and dodging bullets of personal questions. Questions that she hadn’t even thought to ask and answer herself. “Uh,” she lingers. At long last, the bounty hunter does not have a quick quip to reply with prepared. Yet another reason for her to have a distaste for her unlikely partner. It’s remarkable for him to be so daring as to put her own foot in her mouth. He conducts a short circuit in her brain not only for the invasion of privacy, but for the fact that she truly does not know the answer to a simple question. “I guess.”

“You guess.” It’s not a question, he’s parroting back her words to prove how daft it sounded. His face wears an expression she can only label as jaded due to her lack of passion.

“Did you not hear me? Yeah, I guess! I guess I like him.” Her aggression forms a shield against his legion of offensive doubts regarding her situation, love life, and potentially even her personality. 

“I don’t mean to be preaching to a brick wall, but if you’re to spend the rest of your life with someone, it should not just be because you ‘guess you like him’ or for it to simply be a matter of convenience.” It’s stated with such confidence that one ought to believe the words were holy. “Take me for example: I don’t take a shine to Michelle because it makes sense to arrange our lives around each other or because I could use her status or whatever. I love her because my admiration of her character goes beyond explanation.”

“Then there’s no need to explain it,” she states, primly.

Adorned with scrunched eyebrows and a headache of judgement across his face, Peter says “Ugh, you are so stubborn it makes concrete look like duck down. You don’t need to sass me when I’m trying to help you figure your life out.”

“I ain’t never asked for your help.” Michelle stamps out, bred from dignity. 

“You clearly need it, begging unnecessary in such conditions. Besides, if you settled down, then you could be away with all this… cattle rustling and man shooting.”

“Leave it to you to make bounty hunting sound bone-dry dreary.” She attempts to increase the distance between them, but Peter doesn’t let up. “And again, fuck off with your patriarchy bullshit. I don’t need a man to keep me in the kitchen and out of harm’s way.” 

If MJ knew it would be that easy to shut him up, she’d have done it a lot sooner.

But then, she is knee-deep in his loud overthinking, the evidence of the boy trying to dig his internalized misogyny out of his system is painted on his face. So she gives in, “alright, so what, I could, potentially, like him. In a hypothetical way. He’s loyal.”

Peter’s response surprises the both of them. “Well, I’m loyal.” MJ eyes him dubiously. Why would he tell her this? What’s his motive in her knowing that he is as loyal as Harry is? He clearly isn’t sure about the meaning behind his speech either, but he continues to race down this track anyway. 

“And he knows me.”

“What’s all this if not getting to know you?” For some inexplicable reason, Peter can’t hold his words inside his mouth. But MJ knows that eventually on this trip, he’ll learn to swallow that frog of impulse and keep it in his throat where it belongs. Peter looks to the sky for mercy; he too must not understand why he finds it necessary for MJ Watson to know in some way that he cares for her future. Or at the very least, cares enough to become some kind of loyal sidekick. MJ isn’t used to having someone try to wrestle out her bounty hunter, cattle rustling origin story. Save for Harry, who is a tool turned into a friend over their summers of assassinations. She laughs a little at this, the way she would describe such a relationship. And she wonders what to call her newfound relationship between Peter and MJ. Surely, they aren’t friends. Some part of her hates him. But some other parts, some really, really small parts, like his eagerness to stop the bad guys, herself included. She enjoys how he can finally speak the truth around her, unlike how he is with Michelle—all filter and no dimensions. Neither Michelle nor MJ wants some polished man that in-laws love. They like rough edges, adventure, someone who challenges them. Peter is rarely that someone. 

“Y’know Parker, it ain’t a competition. You don’t have to apply or read off your achievements.” 

His face is an obvious shade of red again and this is a time where Michelle is grateful for being black. It sure helps in these situations, where her blush is hidden under her rich skin and she can hide her emotions. Unlike Peter, who is a white canvas under colour so easy to read that she could do it all while counting sheep. 

“Why do you read things like that. I obviously wasn’t applying to be like, what, your man or whatever.” While Peter might not be known for his confidence, this is definitely a great example of a moment where he lacks conviction more so than usual. Nonetheless, he tries to move past it. “Is that it, though? Surely that’s not enough to be stuck with that mudsill for life.”

“What else is there to loving somebody?” She’s on the verge of exhaustion from this unregulated harassment of her private thoughts.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s something deeper. Like, with Michelle,” MJ is so tired of hearing that name. “She reminds me of home, she’s like my Aunt May.” Upon seeing MJ’s questioning glance at him, he exclaims “don’t get it twisted! Not in a weird way. Just-it’s that-they both run the game. After my uncle died, she’s been doing everything for herself and by herself. They don’t need someone, a man, to support them. They just do what they please, and they won’t ask for permission first either. I think it’s… pretty admirable.”

Finally, Peter understands something about women. It almost impresses MJ, but she still expects better.

“I’m going to know you Ms. Watson, you don’t have to like it but I will.” Peter says this with the authority of a judge, completely matter-of-fact. And while MJ wants to play jury, she really feels more like a plaintiff, pointing fingers while willing for justice. 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Its noon when Peter can tell Karen is feeling the wrath of today’s hard work. The floor is demanding on her knees and hooves, so in a feeble attempt to comfort her, Peter strokes the mane on her neck as she rides. Simultaneously, a hot pinprick is felt on his own neck.

In a timeframe of a mere four seconds, Peter’s eyes roll back and he slides completely off his saddle, falling stage left.

When he comes to, his toes are warm where they lay by the fire and he hears two voices speaking quietly over the whirr of cicadas. Glancing over, Peter can only make out MJ’s form. She must feel his stare as she briefly turns to meet his gaze. He can’t translate her features into an emotion, but had she been any other person, or at least a rational one, he would colour her concerned. In fact, MJ appears so incredibly concerned. Her eyebrows are pointed and creased and her lips are delicately pursed. Golden curls of hair wash down around her and her skin is brown and clear, illuminated by fire and starlight. Whoever is speaking to her must repeat themselves again, because MJ is not listening, she only pays attention to Peter. She guards his dark, heavy-lidded eyes with her own. Her head tilts almost curiously, in a fashion so familiar it makes him feel at home despite the foreign soil beneath him. He can’t help but appreciate how entrancingly beautiful MJ looks in this moment. Peter is swallowed up in her soft appearance from where she glows fireside, before he’s out again. 

The next time his eyes open, he is riding a horse, but not his horse. He’s on her horse, and she is in front of him leading. They share a saddle. Wow. Peter can’t tell if it’s the residing effects of whatever hit him last night, or if it’s the heat of MJ from where she bounces lightly in front of him cradled by his thighs, that makes him light-headed. 

“Ugh,” he groans. He can’t help but tilt his head forward to lean onto her, introducing his forehead to the small space between her shoulder blades. His pupils aren’t able to accept light without him feeling a killer pinching to his temples, his neck feels like he was curb stomped by Karen, and yeah, Peter think his dick is waking up too, because Watson’s ass is bumping against his crotch with each trot of her horse. “What in the hell happened to me?”

MJ looks over her shoulder, apathetic to his sufferings, and raises a single sharply curved eyebrow at him. “And good morning to you, too, Princess.” She lets him wait another ten feet of travel before feasting him with information. “You got shot with Ned’s sleep dart and fell flat of your horse. Set us a decent four hours behind schedule.”

“Why are you making _me_ the bad guy? I was literally poisoned!” Peter shouts, leaning over so that the saddle shifts enough for him to attempt to look her in the eye.

“Well, that’s what happened. Surely you wouldn’t want me to lie to you, wouldn’t you? Her lips curl slyly and she must know the position of daft weakness she’s always shoving him into. He feels incredibly helpless, never having any chance to defend or redeem himself. And now Peter staring at her coy, smooth lips. Damnit. He harumphs back into the saddle and crosses his arms, accepting defeat. 

“Okay, so then who’s the big guy?” He settles on. At least it takes the attention off him for a hot second. 

“Big guy’s got a name, white kid!” The boy opposite Peter exclaims with a zeal of cheer that is straight up unlawful for a situation where someone was just _poisoned_ and its ass o’clock in the morning. “I’m Ned, the guy who shot you! Pleasure’s all mine.”

Peter takes a lengthy look at Ned, his eyes squinting like he spent all night getting liquored up on some tarantula juice and woke up hungover. 

“MJ, you weren’t lying when you said he was just another ten-cent man,” Ned concludes, not giving Peter enough time to even think of a reply to his initial introduction.

“I’m not a ten-cent man! I wasn’t judging you for that, I’m just…tired. And maybe a little mad at you too.” Peter gives, “I don’t get why you felt the need to shoot me.”

Ned finally has the decency to show a little shame under his humour. “I’m sorry, but don’t act as if you don’t know. White folk ’round here don’t get no special treatment. In fact, we hunt you down quick as a dog. The Cochise are smarter than that. Shuri wouldn’t let me kick around her camp if I just let a bunch of colonizers sit tight.”

“This is so much information.” Peter’s hands wind up to massage his temples.

“Too much for your tiny little brain to process?” MJ denigrates, but there’s a laugh hidden somewhere in her throat.

Peter swats at her shoulder, but immediately after he has to lean his head against her back again out of pain from moving his body as so. “No.” His voice grumbles low like it crawled out of a cave, like it belonged in gothic German literature. The dryness of his throat turns his already croaky nature and contorts it into that of an aging mule.

“Anyway, now that I know you’re a friend of MJ over here, I’ll make it up to you. No more tricks for you, whitey.”

“Somehow, I feel like I just got jinxed.”

“Sensitive, aren’t you, Peter.” The woman ahead of him sneers at his superstition. He feels the judgement radiate off her in waves of impatience. He measures her lack of tolerance and realizes it only goes knee-deep in the idle water of his understanding. MJ’s flaws are overwhelmingly suffocating to his peace, and yet underwhelming in note of her infamous reputation. Rather than being a dynamic and adjusted person, she proves to be a wet blanket, stick in the mud, outright tired square. Wrongly, Peter thought she would be boisterous with a flair for adventure held up by the foundation of courage, instead she is quiet and chooses each word carefully, and the few times that she hasn’t overthought her replies they turn out to be snide comments. Peter used to find her interesting, and now he can’t help but feel that he judged her too quickly. MJ Watson was a bored criminal who gets off on the agony and inconveniences of others. “Ned, go ahead and tell Peter what you’re doing in the Apaches.”

“I’m looking for a good bit of butterfly weed. Some people from my village have caught pleurisy and it’s the perfect antidote to drain the lungs, but it can be a bit tricky to find out here.”

“Luckily, I know just where to find it. So we’ll be heading out to the Chiricahua canyon, tagging another ten hours to our trip.” MJ shifts the rim of her Stetson as they enter a long stretch of direct sunlight, evading the shade provided by emerging flora. 

“Another half day? That’s insane, we’ll never make it to Agua Prieta in time to save Michelle.” There it goes, Peter’s heart ricochets with an amplitude of anxiety.

“That’s not fair Parker, so you can waste a half day being asleep but we can’t take the same time to make sure half of Ned’s village doesn’t die?”

“Again, _I’m_ the victim here. Me. This guy. Hi, hello. Deputy Peter Parker, full time prey to your cruelty.”

“Parker, no one likes a whiner, and you’re not the prey. You’re clearly just the token injured party. Now, stop being an asshole and stay in your lane. Ned’s on a time limit.” Out of pettiness, MJ commands the horse to gallop even faster, making Peter’s head bobble like the bell tied to the saloon doors, where it rings endlessly upon the entrance of the regular 5 o’clock crowd. Peter groans from the pain, tugging his hat down to shield his eyes from the betraying sun. 

“I know it must be hard for you to comprehend the natural course of human relationships and how to treat other people, but an effort on your part must be taken.” Peter bickers back at her, ushering MJ to see the faults in her actions. 

“Could you just get over yourself for a full minute here? ’Cause we ain’t trying to be the assholes here, you’ve got to recognize that maybe you’re the cranky one.” She pauses for a healthy second, just enough time to stew over her lasting bruise of sass. “Good lord, I wish Ned could just shoot you down again, you’re a lot nicer when you’re quiet. Just be the pretty face you are and shut it. You definitely could use a nap.”

“Oh, so you think I’m pretty?” He blushes tenderly around her disclosure, but his voice cracks in an unpretty way, effectively killing whatever elevation he had over her on their see-saw of power. 

MJ recoils at his question, shifts again so that her eyes cross from looking at him so closely from their shared saddle. Peter uses this chance to file away the coppery tones of her eyes and the warm hues of her skin into an empty cabinet labelled _Things I Like About MJ_. He is just distracted enough that he almost misses her next words. “Is that seriously all you got out of that? You completely disregarded everything else I said.”

Ned takes this opportunity to break Peter out of his daze. “Oh my god, are you sets always like this?”

In unison, the pair shouts a harmonized “NO” that is so instinctual one might wonder which part it naturally escaped from—the head or the heart. 

“Mhmm, because that was super convincing.” Ned serves this so deadpan that it humours Peter. He’s entertaining, that’s for sure. 

“Just lay off, Ned.” Her words are just fiery enough that Ned eyes widen before he faces forward to scrunch his face up in confusion over why his words triggered such a reaction in the first place. 

“Let’s just move on, then.” Has Peter mentioned that he is so tired yet? Because he is. He is exhausted. Looking over the options, Peter would feel guilty if he didn’t agree, but he’s also pretty sure even if he did say no, MJ would have taken the detour anyway. He’s remembering Mr. Stark’s advice, but Peter hasn’t been able to fully decipher it yet. Mr. Stark said for Peter to not do anything that he himself _would_ do. What the hell does that even mean? If he followed that to begin with he wouldn’t even be on this expedition to Michelle. The ever so unpredictable Stark would forego the retrieval of the weed to get to Michelle just as likely as he would choose to scavenge for the medicinal herb because that was the rightful thing to do. If this is the case, then there’s probably not a wrong answer for Peter. 

He settles on “I think if it’s that important, we should get that medicine for your people.” But he knows that short of this answer, he will be spending the rest of the trip deciphering that message, formulating how Mr. Stark would truly act. 

“Yes! I knew I liked you, Peter.” At Ned’s excitement, Peter feels its contagion and in spite of his current state of grouch, a beatific smile captures his face. 

“And can I stop riding pick-back?” Peter remembers how uncomfortable he was on the back squished up behind MJ. It felt small as an Eastener’s pimple saddle and his thighs were getting sore from him pointedly not touching her behind. Not to mention, he feels plumb awkward being so physically close to someone he could hardly stand. 

“At the next stop, sure.”

“When will that be?” His head is just beginning to climb the mountain of pain he was previously at the foot of.

Each response of MJ gets shorter and shorter, so he’s not surprised when she only voices a brief “Soon.” 

As it turns out, ‘soon’ means very different things to Peter and MJ. In four hours of heeding a broken trail, he can’t help but whine again. “Ms. Watson, are we there yet? I thought you said soon.”

“Stop asking so many questions, dear God,” she says, pointed and uncaring. “I’ll let you off, quick as we round this bend.”

So Peter counts every step of her horse until they reach the end of it. It’s 197.

MJ tightens her grasp on the reigns to pull her horse into a full stop, and she smoothly slides off first. Peter follows, but in an awkward and lack lustre fashion in comparison, he bumbles off and his spurs get caught in the stirrups. She only looks down on him from the two inches of height she has over him, completely unimpressed. “Have some water. If you can hunt something down, I can make a quick meal out of it, but you gotta make a clean shot. None of yous would want me to go on and cook up an English meal. Ned and I’ll tend the cattle while you’re off. See you in ten minutes, and not a damn second after.” For every ounce of natural instinct she has for leadership, she equally has in natural inclination to be a thorn to Peter’s side. 

He sighs exactly once for every few feet he walks aimlessly for a hunt. His mind wanders to wherever Michelle might be, lingering in the front of it all with each and every other thought providing a soft background while the lens focusses on her. What would she think if she saw him right now? Would she be impressed at how far he’s made it, or would she guffaw at how lame he looks next to Watson. He fiddles with the revolver Mr. Stark supplied him with, thumb grazing the cool metal after he pulls it from his worn holster. Leave it to Michelle to make him nervous when she isn’t even around. 

In the thresh of withered brush and undergrowth, Peter swallows a yawn. It’s tough to remember how tired one can be when everything moves so fast around them. Comically, Peter wonders if this adventure will become what the future Peter will once look back on in reminiscence. Are these the good ol’ days, or is it the week wrought from fire and hell? There’s a pause in his step, he waits for a sound of fauna around him, but he can’t hear a darn thing over the rumble of his stomach. 

Peter wants to give up so bad. He wants to return to the others, ask if they can just feed off Mr. Stark’s stash of pemmican and bannock. He misses May and a roof over his head and running water. Perhaps he isn’t cut out for the wild life. For him to be a pencil pusher behind some chipped oak desk sounds more realistic. It’s funny, when he was a kid he thought he’d grow up to be some sort of hero, but at the present Peter believes that if given the opportunity to reverse the clock, there’s a decent chance he would tell his eight year old self not to fly to close to the sun. Ambition is a wretched thing. Dumb Peter, he thinks, always putting his hand back on that stove. 

Mr. Stark told him when you burn yourself enough times, you kill the nerves in your skin. One day, you’ll wake up and not recognize what it’s like to feel matter. Like wind, water, or another living, breathing and warm body. To trace circles into their skin. 

Peter speculates: has MJ lost her sense of touch? Does she not remember what it’s like to be whole and feel? 

A crackle of twig is heard from behind him, he turns to shoot at the target with hunger being his motivation. A bullet drives clean through it, but not at the head like MJ requested. Go figure, he’ll deal with her criticisms later. 

But a whistle prevents him from continuing his trek to collect the hunted rabbit. “Ms. Watson? Is that you?”

Nothing. 

A slight breeze hits his neck, prompting the hairs of his arms to rise. Peter can sense something is up. And then he is acquainted by a threatening presence. Graceful and impossibly slow, a figure is dropping from a tree right above him. His horrific features daunt him, a flat nose and square Frankenstein head. Sags of skin act like the drooping membrane that hangs off of malnourished cattle. The intruder’s hands are adorned with oxidized metal jewellery, and when he brings his claws up to his face, they curl unhurried into a shushing form. It’s unnecessary though, fear has already paralyzed Peter into silence. 

Behind Peter is a hulking man of olive toned appearance who picks him up with ease, throwing Peter over his shoulder, and they walk away with an essence of casual that makes Peter feel as though they merely picked up him up like ice from the Knickerbocker truck. The two take him to a second location where he can no longer distinguish which way is north and where he left MJ and Ned. They sit him down and reveal themselves as the crooks Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian. 

“Don’t even bother to try and run away from us. Take one look at us and then another at your scrawny, pathetic excuse for a body. You wouldn’t make it five feet.” Ebony Maw’s voice rasps around each syllable and it sends shards of ice down the Deputy’s spine. Ire boils in Peter’s innards and pumps out in his bloodstream. 

“We saw you out there. With her. Do you know what you’re getting into, child?” The ghoulish man sneers down at Peter’s slack body that was thrown into the dirty field of long and shedding grass. Peter assumes he is talking about MJ, but he refuses to let out any information that could jeopardize MJ’s life, and with hers comes Michelle’s too.

“Keep mum, fine, but don’t say we never warned you.” The pair of villains bring his body up to bind him to a log of dead birch. It’s already prepared next to a pit of dry wood and flint that is laid over a thick pile of ashes. This surely isn’t their first time at the rodeo. 

Ebony Maw does all the talking. His eerie inflection tells Peter that MJ is not who he thinks she is. She is a thousand times worse, give or take. 

Once he’s properly tied and bound, the two monsters leave him be on a crooked stake hanging over a blazing bonfire. His ankles are wrapped a suffocating level of tight near the bottom of the trunk, leaving him three feet above ground. Worse than that, his wrists are knotted behind the hefty wood so that his body is strapped rotisserie style. They’ve stripped him of his shirt, so he’s inhaling full quarts of smoke and the flames lick at his near naked body. Only his jeans and leather boots protect what’s left of his dignity.

To distract himself from the heat, he observes his surroundings. He’s in a perfectly round field of dry, barren straw. It mismatches the rest of what he’s seen of the Pass, looking futile in what is otherwise a diverse environment. Crowded around the field are dead trees, contaminated by viral  
pine beetles that plague what was once most certainly a beautiful landscape. They look like skeletons that look like Peter. Only more ashen. And Peter is sweating, so at least he still has a touch of moisture left in him.

His eyes become red from the brittle air, but it doesn’t deter him from trying to wrestle himself out of his binds. The heavy rope proves his efforts to be vain and rub him raw, blood rushing to where the skin peels. He continues to struggle until the tears and sweat begin to taste the same and the blood in his mouth provides a good chase to the liquor of saline.

The flames get closer as they eat away at the wood that fuels it. It becomes angrier with each second that passes until it has a fury that could rival a Norse God’s.

Peter isn’t really a religious person, at least not compared to the rest of Safford. Yet here he is, praying to whatever god might hear him, wishing for one to allow him to find a way out of this one.

Peter thinks he can already smell the burning of human flesh. He flashes between wakefulness and unconscious from smoke inhalation. Now is the time for him to give up, surrender himself to the fact that yes, he truly needs MJ. Or Ned. Ned will do. Maybe he’d be even better too, because then Peter won’t have it shoved in his face for being reckless and naïve.

The skin of his chest, where the body contact is closest to the bonfire, is bubbling up like sea foam on a cloudless night.

Peter can see ammonites chipped and laying half buried in the spare patches of dust, sand, and dirt. How ironic. The ground upon which he hangs used to house amazing sea creatures that seemed invincible 65 million years ago, but today the very same sand remains under the fire that will kill him. When the ground inevitably swallows him up, he too will be another fossil in the ground only to be rediscovered eons later. It’s a comforting thought, at least before Peter remembers the troubling fact that he might die without seeing Michelle one last time.

The day before she went missing he had walked with her at sunrise. She was always a morning person, something he could never be no matter how hard he tried or however much coffee he could chug. Michelle spoke eloquently over the importance of taxing corporations and privatized monopolies in order to lower the income tax of the middle and lower class. While she fretted about trade workers and independent family businesses, he admired her incomparable intelligence. Peter took his time to walk beside her, accompanying her for a few miles between her home and the small, verging on tiny, book shoppe where she worked every other weekend. He loved to hear her speak on issues he didn’t even realize were a problem in their lives. For every time she educated him, he had loved her more. At this point, he’s become absolutely besotted with her. There’s hardly any more room in his heart and brain to absorb more of her.

When he realizes this is his last memory of her, the final strike before death, Peter accepts his faith. It was a privilege to live the life he had. Loving her quietly, laughing with her loudly. With his eyes closed, he can still hear the harmonized giggles of her and Aunt May when they would gang up and tease him together.

Peter can’t look away from the fire now. His eyes glaze over and his vision is ensnared by the multi-coloured inferno. All that is left is a boy caught in rope and despair. His muscle memory has his wrists feebly rubbing themselves raw against the rough texture of the ties, weakly enough that it surely has no effect on the situation at all. Hearing nothing but the flicker of sparks and ember, he becomes deaf to all but white noise, so it’s not surprising when he misses the brush of grass and a woman calling his name.

It’s MJ. Not that Peter notices; he’s too fixated on dying.

She takes the dagger from the leather sheath that hangs off her belt and drags it through the binds of his ankles. When his legs splay and hang from the stake, he must kick as if he were swimming in order to avoid the wicked hands that grab at him from the fire.

MJ tugs the log from which Peter hangs back so it’s standing full tilt and he is no longer roasting like swine over the bonfire.

“Bend your knees,” she commands as she cuts him free from the rest of the knots. Peter blindly follows her direction and bends so that he lands in a proper fashion, protecting his ankles which are already delicate from the hour of hell they just endured. As soon as his feet are reacquainted with the earth, Peter falls back on his tailbone. His body refuses to support him, his ligaments and joints failing him from the rigour.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” MJ looks a thousand flavours of fuming at the moment, but Peter blanches.

“Sorry, what?” He looks up at her, dazed and confused. His jaw is just slack enough so that his sunburnt lips are red, full, and open, resembling the bow of bare skin hidden between the gap of closed buttons on a flannel shirt.

“How could you get caught like this? I was worried something fierce about you! Ned and I split up hours ago trying to find you. And you end up bound and near-dead. How long have you been here? Who did this?” She continues to spout endless words at him until her knees grow weak and they fold in concavely and she too is sitting square as a duck. Her legs form an M-figure and her curled white fists rest over her thighs which are kneeled between Peter’s own. With a downcast face her voice wavers. Guilt does not naturally grace Watson’s face but today it is worn with reverence. Her eyes could only be described as forlorn from where she observes Peter’s defiled body, starting from his bleeding ankles and roaming carefully until she landed on his tear-stricken eyes. MJ’s own lips quiver when they move around her softly spoken words, “I thought I’d never see you again, Parker.”

Her admission is the trigger that finally pulls a cohesive reaction from Peter. His lips make the tiniest quirk upwards and his eyes get that wicked glint once again. “You were worried about me.” It’s not a question.

Immediately, MJ returns to her defensive stance. “No, obviously I wasn’t.”

“Yes you were. You totally just revealed your deep and melancholic love for me.”

“I didn’t!” She momentarily forgets his injuries and pushes his shoulders. Peter hisses in pain, but he accepts it and easily falls to the ground. His chest is still pumping with short and rapid breaths but it doesn’t deter him from chuckling at MJ’s reaction. “Oh lord, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

“Never better.” He looks into her eyes to assure that he’s okay, but after making that connection, he closes them for rest. It’ll take some time for him to be able to open them for more than a few seconds without it stinging. MJ rips the lace handkerchief from her neck to dab at the sweat that gathers on his forehead and drips over his lips, jaw, neck.

“You’re so burnt,” she comments. One look at his chest and anyone could see how critical the damage is. Peter’s skin is an angry red and bubbles of fluid are forming under the first layer. It’s pebbled with goosebumps from shock. His muscles are defined and swole with the hours of being flexed in stress. Her hands graze his collarbones and shoulders which the flames sacrificed and aren’t too badly burnt, petting him prettily in comfort.

“S’okay. I’m just gonna sleep for a l’il bit,” Peter slurs. She nods in recognition of his announcement and moves so that his head can rest in her lap. Within seconds his breathing evens out and he’s at peace in her touch.

A half hour later, Ned whistles at the picture of the two of them together so intimately. MJ shushes him and her face returns to its heedless look. “Don’t even start, Leeds.”

“I haven’t said anything yet!” He begins to defend himself but is quickly shut up by MJ again.

“Be quiet and open your eyes, idiot. He’s asleep. Just give him a minute, alright?” Her punitive tone does not disturb the ear to ear grin that takes over Ned’s face. The corners of his eyes are crinkled like wrapping paper from the absolute glee of seeing his favourite person with a _boy_ in such a compromising position.  
For the second time that day, Peter wakes up on the back of a horse. Only this time, he’s half-naked. He feels even worse than he did earlier that day, and it’s near nighttime now so he prays that means he can actually sleep for more than a couple hours and in an ergonomic horizontal position. Horses are not meant to be slept on, he resolves. He has plenty of experience of that to judge by when making this jurisdiction. 

Maybe it’s become an act of comfort for him on this never-ending day, but Peter let’s his face lean until it meets with MJ’s back again. It’s what’s there, you know. He needs it for his safety. That’s what he tells himself at least, since it’s not at all because she is soft and inviting and because here is exactly where he wants to be at the moment. Not even a little bit. 

“Morning.” Her comment is short and curt. 

“You’re alive! Pete, you almost died on us. I can’t believe you’re still here, and when I found y’all, you and MJ were—” Ned is rudely cut off by MJ clearing her throat obnoxiously. 

“Were in the vicinity of each other and then bam! Here we are back on a horse. Ta-da. Story over.” Her voice isn’t nasty when she says this, but it is final.

To soothe Peter’s confusion over, she does ask if he remembers anything, to which he replies: “Enough.” He goes to touch her right shoulder blade but flinches back. When he thinks it over, he decides that in spite of whatever lash-back he might receive, it’s worth the effort to show his gratitude. His hand is gentle from where it cups her shoulder. “Thanks.”

Ned gawks at this private moment, switching his focus back and forth between MJ and Peter. He’s amazed at the turn of events, never once in his friendship with MJ has he seen her even let a man step foot near her without trapping him in a headlock in addition to a blade to his neck. 

Though Peter believes she may be brave, she still fears the physical touch of another human, and so MJ turns rigid with his easy touch. She politely takes her left hand to reach over to the opposite shoulder where Peter’s hand is, only to take her hand, squeeze his own, and tug it off her back. In response, Peter only shakes his head and chuckles to himself. It’s one of few times that MJ has made him feel a true, positive emotion. At this time of strife from today’s near-death experiences, Peter is especially grateful. 

No woman has had the power of making Peter feel both at peace and on edge whenever she chooses. 

Nighttime falls and with it, MJ decides now is the time to get settled. She stakes out an open patch of grass that’s hidden well behind some foliage. 

“You two can get a fire going,” she says as she lugs off some material from her horse’s sacks. 

“Where are you going?” Peter whirls around to MJ, panicked at the thought of her leaving him. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still traumatized by the events of today. 

With finality, she answers “nowhere, don’t worry about it.” 

Peter worries about it. 

After putting together a fire and making a quick meal of some rabbit hunted along the way, the boys are free to do nothing. There’s five minutes of back and forth where Ned tries to get Peter to admit that MJ’s pretty, but it’s quickly dampened out by Peter childishly giving him the silent treatment. All that can be heard between them are the lazy moos of the cattle from behind their makeshift camp. After Peter gets hit with an inkling of guilt, he decides to ask Ned about his own home life, and the amicability is steady from then on. Peter and Ned are leaned up against a fallen and decaying log, eyes concentrated on the embers and flames of their small fire when MJ returns with something green in her hand. 

She looms over them so that they are interrupted in their very important fire supervision. They tilt their heads back in synchronization so that they are looking at her bent head upside down. Peter’s a bit confused because from this position and angle he can’t tell whether MJ is smiling or frowning at them. Maybe both, but either way it makes Peter nervous. “Ned. Perimeter check. You’re elected. Now go.” She’s prompt with her directions so Peter doesn’t feel the need to argue. 

Ned unequivocally does not have this survival instinct, and chooses to say something dumb and challenging. “Elected? That’s not official. That’s 33 percent of the population, that wouldn’t get me in office. Consider this perimeter check refuted.” 

She may be upside down, but even guileless Peter can tell that was the wrong answer from the way she juts out her jaw and how her eyes slim out like a snake’s in the sun. “Ha. Wrong answer, kiddo. Peter? What’s your vote?” 

Peter’s eyes trail from hers to Ned’s. Rinse and repeat. But on his third cycle, his eyes don’t stop at MJ’s, instead they park on the wicked gleam of her smile. And they focus on the gloss of her lips that reflect the flames and he believes that she looks like the dragons that breathe fire he’d learnt about in wild stories told by childhood past. “Uhm, I second Ms. Watson’s petition.”

“Oh, come on!” Ned rolls his eyes and stands to his feet, fuming. “Et tu, Peter? I thought we were friends.” 

Peter takes another sidelong glance at MJ, sees her daring glare and comes to the conclusion that the iron-willed woman should not be challenged. “I owe you one, partner. But I’m not about to mess around with someone like her.” He hears the bounty hunter scoff at this, but he’s too afraid to meet her eye contact. However, he is able to concentrate on the tips of his boots and the gravel he toes at in shame.

While spewing mindless words about betrayal and MJ’s bossiness and how tired he is and so on Ned skitters away until it drifts out of hearing. He can see the slump of Ned’s shoulders as he trudges away to do away with his chore. When he returns his attention back to MJ, he is astonished at the image he intruded on. MJ’s coat is off, her bare shoulders revealed. She’s unloading her belt, taking the six-shooter gun out of its holster, the dagger from its sheath, the furled paracord that’s wrapped like a resting snake. “ _What are you doing_?” The words rush out of his mouth half in shock and half in anticipation. 

“Jesus, Parker, let up a little. I’m just trying to get you something to bite on. Now take off your shirt.” 

“ _What_?” Peter’s eyes are as wide as the black and blue sky above them, his mouth is open in a timid ‘o’ shape. 

“If you don’t take it off, I ain’t afraid to do it myself,” she says this without any qualms, the only tell of emotion on her face is a coy smile and a single thick, raised eyebrow. “Now are you about to strip as I say, or will I have to do it?” 

Peter scrambles to rip off his shirt, only frowning in discomfort at the sting of the flannel and undershirt scraping against the burns. 

“Good boy.” With a voice thickly sweet like golden syrup, his face flushes at her words. Validation is a powerful thing. And it should never be used in conjunction with domination, because it makes Peter’s toes curl and thighs clench and his stomach drop. All good things. She ushers his body to lay flat on a bedroll.

She withdraws a hip flask from one of her bags and unscrews the top. It slips off and hangs from the attaching link and Peter realizes where this is going. “Oh god, no.” He scoots himself quickly backwards so that he looks like a desperate crab. 

“Knock it off, kid. It’ll hurt more to let it get infected.” Michelle scrutinizes how badly burnt his torso is. “If we don’t dress them today, you will literally be scarred for life.”

“No way! That’ll hurt like a motherfucker.” The panic of him shows in his wavering voice, which rises and falls in unnatural movements comparable to that of a pubescent boy.

“Goddamn it, Parker, I’ll bind you up again if you won’t listen.” Her threat scares him into submission and he lies back onto the bedroll. 

She puts the leather belt in his mouth, “Bite this so you don’t scream. I ain’t letting you give our location away.” Peter takes it firmly into his mouth and waits for the misery to wash down on him.

Without any mercy, MJ pours it all on in one go, and Peter groans into the leather. The belt is given indentations of his teeth. Pain wrings out his blood vessels and strains him so that he leans forward abruptly. His eyes well with tears and he’s mere inches from her own face. He’s panting from the ruthless first aid, but it can only go up from here. Pumped by the sting, his pectorals glisten from sweat and alcohol, and the boozy sweet smell in the air clouds the two. He catches MJ staring at his chest, trailing her eyes all over him like prose in a bestseller. It makes him feel a bit godly, to say the least. 

Continuing on, MJ lets the moonshine dampen a strip of flannel rag to polish over his torn wrists and ankles with care. And then things seem almost okay, because she takes what she was holding earlier in her left hand, and the unsheathed blade in her right cuts it cleanly in half. A gel is revealed from its interior and it peaks his curiosity. MJ must see the question forming in his eyes because she states that its “Aloe, it’s pretty common around here and it’ll help with the burns.” Peter nods his head in consent when she looks to him for permission before salving his wounds. “Are you able to tell me who did this to you?”

Peter’s mind goes back to the bleary memory from just this afternoon. It feels like years ago. “Ebony Maw, and Cull something or other.”

In an instant, Watson’s composed demeanor is disturbed.

“Do you know them?” He feels naïve to ask, but he needs to know who they are.

She merely nods her head in response.

“Who are they?”

She peers down at him, evaluating. “The less you know the better.” Her patronization further ticks him off. 

In spite of her dragon-like appearance, her hands are cool against his skin. The aloe feels like a life line and he cannot let go. It might just be the most relieving sensation he’d ever felt before. This speaks volumes, he thinks, because he’s felt a lot of sensations before—good, great, but this is better. MJ cleans him off and he no longer feels like a diamond in the rough. MJ makes him feel like something treasured and he can’t quite place why. 

Peter realizes that for 18 of the last 19 hours, when he wasn’t sleeping off the hangover that follows the brief introduction to death, he spent an unhealthy amount thinking about MJ. Her origin story, her healing touch, the sharp wit of her words. It all makes Peter feel so young again, with a beseeching curiosity where he wants to learn what the world under his heels means, what it can make possible. 

Before this last day, Peter accepted answers as they were given to him. Everything was a fact to him and he felt no need to view them as otherwise. In a short day, he has begun to question everything around him. Peter sees things more as suggestions now rather than as hard-hitting facts. It’s liberating, really. Being with MJ has shown Peter another side of himself that isn’t afraid to step on toes if it means it will push him in the right direction. 

“Is this why you sent Ned away? To cop a feel of me?” Peter laughs. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, I would never. I just know that he’d... make it weird or something.” MJ says this as if she spent a long time to calculate that outcome. 

“Make it weird?” His eyebrows rise in suspicion. 

“Yeah, you mean you didn’t notice?” MJ tsks and side-eyes Peter’s dumbfound look. “Ned is a huge freaking pervert. He could even make Sunday prayer feel nasty with all his suggestive connotations.” 

“Hmm, he does seem to do that a lot.” He reflects on all the times Ned has pushed him into speaking about MJ, or sabotaged the two to become trapped in forced conversation with each other. “He’s a good guy though, I know he means well under all his debauchery.”

This causes MJ to giggle childishly, her eyes twist and glow behind the breathable material of her mask. Peter is suddenly very aware of her gentle touch on his chest now. Sometimes he feels so comfortable in MJ’s presence that he forgets she’s a woman. It sounds mean, but he’s so _bad_ at talking to girls, forgive him, please, and talking with MJ can be so easy. She riles him up so that he doesn’t think twice about his words around her. She must catch on to his sudden rigidness because she asks, “does it hurt?” when she sees the release of his stuttering breath. 

“No, no, it’s fine.” He looks away from her stern gaze. Peter can’t find it in himself to match her anymore. She’s beyond him. “Good, actually. I feel a lot better.”

“Let it breathe for tonight. I’ll wrap it in the morning.” She gives him one last look before getting back to business and cleaning her supplies. “He’s back,” she says. 

Peter is confused until a minute later when Ned reveals himself from the shadows. “What? How did you know that?”

“Because Ned has the subtlety of a donkey. I heard him 50 yards back.” Peter’s eyes flick between the two and he can’t lie. He is damn well impressed by her skill. “Since I clearly carried the team today, and since you lot ain’t got nothing on me, I get first call on rest. You two can take watch and we’ll swap in four hours.” MJ looks delighted by her own words and launches off her saddle to get to work on setting up camp. Peter watches her do everything with a precision that tells him this is practically Sunday routine for her. 

The night settles easy around them and after prepping a fire and a hot meal of stew, MJ wastes no time in falling asleep propped against a log resting on a sand dune. Peter is able to watch her eyes go from sharp to heavy as her lids open, close, open, close, then finally, MJ is asleep. Peter wonders if she slept at all last night without him being conscious to take over watch. This prompts him to ask Ned if so.  
“Maybe for an hour, at most?” He replies breezily.

“Only an hour?” Peter is alarmed by this fact. “That means she must have been awake for almost 20 straight hours. That’s insane! How is she still functioning? No person should take on the workload of a horse.” He feels an intense wave of guilt wash over him, its cold and tastes like salt in his mouth. His gaze lingers on her body. Even in sleep, it carries the tension of an elastic band being pulled at freezing temperature. 

“That’s MJ for you. She does what she wants and all she wants is to help people.” Ned says this like he’s bored which only serves to confuse Peter more. Ned says it as if it was a simple, everyday fact, but the information it reveals says so much. Peter turns his eye from Ned and returns it to MJ’s sleeping body. Everything he learns about her sparks a curiosity in him that get stronger with each new fact. 

“Say, how do you know her?” That curiosity is present in the question. MJ is hiding something impossibly big from Peter underneath her cold exterior. Whatever it is, Peter feels it’s his duty to figure it out. You know, by obligation. For her own safety, probably. 

“She helped my village when we were threatened by some outlaws. She just shot ‘me up like it weren’t nothing but a small thing. And there was like, at least twelve.” Ned gushes. He looks at Peter and folds his hands under his chin. “Cool, right?” 

“Uhm, very... cool.” Peter wouldn’t necessarily consider killing people cool, but he guesses if it was to protect a village of people then he could find a way to excuse it. Murder in ethics is debatable. Peter just debates that it should never happen, ever. But he doesn’t make the rules, so there’s that. MJ is the kind of woman who makes rules, Peter’s the kind of boy who follows them and perhaps this is the best way to outline their relationship. At least if one were to ignore whatever adverse emotions felt between the pair.

His eyes trail back to MJ and he is entranced by her golden brown skin all over again. He can’t shake off how she looks at night. It’s so different than how he sees her in the daytime. She is calm and angelic in the moonlight, incomparable to her demonic daytime presence. Under the blue sky, she seems so strong, unbreakable, inhuman. But when she is asleep like this, he feels the need to protect her. 

“We should let her sleep longer.” Peter looks over to Ned to see what his thought might be.

“You mean for more than the four hours?”

“Yeah. You can sleep whenever you want, I can handle this on my own. Besides, I spent most of the day passed out on a horse anyway,” he chuckles.

“Nah, I can deal. Wake me up if you ever feel even _remotely_ sleepy and we can swap.” Ned smiles graciously and lays out his bedroll. “Night, Peter.”

“Goodnight, Ned.” And then there was one.

Peter manages to stay awake until there’s an hour until the sun rises which is the perfect time to wake the others. MJ springs awake in a panic when Peter so much as grazes her shoulder. “What time is it?” She demands his answer and her eyebrows meet in anger.

“Probably a quarter past four, I’d imagine.”

“Why didn’t you wake me!? Did you not sleep a damn wink last night? Are you mad?” Her hair is frizzy from sleep and hugs her shoulders with its roots and ends no longer held back by her hat.

“Hey now, calm down. I thought it’d be fine since I slept all day anyway.” Peter chooses to hide the fact that he desperately waited to sleep all day, but upon hearing that she didn’t rest before in order to protect him, his body got a second wind of energy. She doesn’t seem completely satisfied by this answer but she accepts it as is. 

Ned seems undisturbed by this rude awakening, finally growing accustomed to their spats. 

“Ugh, fine, up and at ‘em, boys. Best to make hay while the sun still shines.” Her mood turns a 180 and she quickly collects their camping supplies. “Let’s be off within five.” Peter will never get used to her hectic schedule.

She tends to his wounds and reapplies the aloe, all while Ned blatantly stares at the occurrence in front of him. MJ remains quiet the entire time, save for her terse instructions for Peter to shift his body for a better angle. Her hands gloss lightly over his shoulder blades, and his eyes watch her careful movements, occasionally flicking over to look into her eyes. Peter is so entranced by her that he doesn’t even hear Ned’s doleful cooing. She wraps gauze around his chest and over a shoulder for stability, before moving onto his wrists and ankles. MJ maintains her delicate touch and even helps him dress in his undershirt and socks. When he tucks himself back into his boots and heaves on his flannel, she is still silently observing him.

Within three hours, they are heading down a steep hill, venturing into the Chiricahua Canyon. Peter is finally back on his trusty mare, Karen, and all is right with the world. The cattle are struggling to move down such rocky terrain, and so Peter announces it to the trio. 

MJ spends a moment calculating, her head tilts, and she uncaps her springy hair from her head, using her hat as a fan. “You’re right. Can you two manage watching the dozen? I can get the weed by myself.”

“Only if you’re sure you can manage.” He’s searching her eyes for the answer.

“I’m sure.” Peter nods his head, allowing her to persist solo. 

Through some way and some how, Ned has grown immune to silence. As in, wherever Ned can be, it is never quiet. His mouth moves a million words a minute and he has zero sense of awareness. He could talk Peter’s ears off. But Peter thinks he likes it, he appreciates Ned’s affinity for quality banter. Ned’s funny, after all. And he finds that the two share a lot in common. Peter will miss him after he separates from the group, but he knows that with Ned’s persistent character, he’ll likely see him again soon. 

It’s not long until Ned chases Peter back into that corner of possibility with MJ.

“Say, how long have you known MJ for, now?”

“Like two days, almost twice as long as I’ve known you.” His defensive stance is growing with each nerve that Ned strikes. Ned only laughs, and steers the conversation back where he wants it to be.

“So you pair have gotten this close over such a short span of time? That ought to be record-breaking.” Ned waggles his eyebrows suggestively. 

“It’s really not, Ned.” An elongated sigh brews from Peter’s throat. His voice is teetering on that line that is drawn between bored and exhausted.

“Well, I for one, think something’s there.” Ned says this with an air of confidence. He breezes through as if he were giving a lecture at the Harvard school of Cambridge. 

“There is _nothing_ there, Ned. I’d know if there was, but there’s nothing.” Peter keeps his face straight, avoiding Ned’s invasive scope. 

“I don’t know,” his voice drags with zeal, “I asked MJ about you and she would have to disagree.”

“Wait, what? She’s into me?” Peter perks up at the fact. MJ surprises him every minute. It’s seriously giving him whiplash. He’s trying his hardest not to smile, but its reflexively showing his true reaction. In a feeble attempt to cover the evidence, Peter thinks of the driest material possible to calm his racing heart—wallpaper, homogenized milk, a hay silo, you name it—anything to help him relax. 

“Mhmm, she thinks you are ab-so-lute-ly fantastic.” Hidden behind Ned’s hat is a mischievous leer. “How does that make you feel, man?”

“Uh, it makes me feel… nothing.” He already knows that Ned can see through his cheap lie.

“Aha! I knew it. You’re totally lying right now; you are so smitten by her. My two best friends are in love!” He cries then begins chanting this last line on endless repeat. Finally, he concludes with, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“We aren’t in love, Ned, not even close.”

“Don’t ruin this for me. I can’t even feel my face right now, this is awesome, I’m smiling _so_ hard.”

“Oh my god, let this be over, please,” he implores.

“No way, Peter. Love is forever.”

“I’m not in love with Ms. Watson, okay!” His patience has drawn thin and all this talk about MJ has made Peter feel guilty. The whole motive behind this mission was to save Michelle, not hook up with some lowly criminal. “I’m soft down on some other girl, anyway.”

“What? Who could hold a flame to MJ, she’s the coolest.”

“There’s this girl from back home, Michelle Jones. I lose my mind over her every day.”

“Sorry, did you just say Michelle Jones?”

“Yeah… you know her or something?”

Ned bursts into a shrieking laugh. “You mean you don’t know?” He muffles his laughter with a loose fist.

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Peter’s mind is muddled with confusion, Ned undoubtedly knows something that he doesn’t, and it has to do with Michelle, but Peter can’t deduce what he is missing. He figures he is too close to the problem, once he can extract himself from the equation, perhaps after they return to Safford. Then he can look at it again, big picture style. 

“This just got so much more interesting. Be sure to mail me an invite to the wedding when you figure your life out.”

“O…kay?”

Silence is fixed between them but it’s comfortable for Peter. “Hey, Ned?”

“What’s up?” Ned says casually.

“You’re my best friend, too.” Peter’s looking down, but a boyish smile is plastered on his face. Ned, on the other hand, is beaming so brightly Peter thinks it ought to be painful. 

“I can’t believe this day just got better.”

It’s been at least 45 minutes until Peter gets worried. “Did Ms. Watson say exactly how long she would take?” He peers over the edge to take in the canyon. There are balancing rocks and hoodoos that tower over the cacti. Johann’s pine blends in with cypress trees, and odd cuts of rock and ash are clear results of a nearby volcanic eruptions, but Peter can’t estimate exactly how long ago it all occurred. The town of Safford was developed so recently, it’s a particularly new township here in the southwest, and not even a two day’s trek would take a person to somewhere so magnificently historic. 

“Hmm, yeah, it’s been an awful long while since she left, huh.”

“I think I ought to go after her. She just went straight down, there’s no way we’d miss her.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Ned’s combing through the dusty hide of the cows, mindlessly petting them all in equal manner. He never favours one over another, because they become jealous so quickly. It’s remarkable how quickly they’ve taken to Ned, whereas with Peter and MJ they wouldn’t bat an eye. 

“Well, we can’t just sit here, she could be in some real trouble.” Or Peter could get into trouble, he reasons silently. He hates to think about what happened the last time he was separated from her this long. Peter’s left hand nervously circles his other wrist, feeling the scabs that have developed overnight. 

“MJ doesn’t get in trouble, Peter, she’s not like us. She causes trouble. Completely different.”

“I don’t know… The guys that tied me up, they said they were after Ms. Watson. Maybe they have her now.”

Ned snickers at his worry. “My god, if you’re so worried about your girlfriend, then I think it’s best for you to go, I can sit tight and watch the cattle ’til you come back around.” 

Peter gives Ned a reassuring nod, then steers Karen to follow down the rocky path to the valley below. 

It doesn’t take long for him to track down her stallion, the dirt is so dry that its hooves leave noticeable indents into the ground. The boy ties Karen up to the same branch that MJ tied hers up to, and enters the rolling caves of eroded tuff. He’s following bends and figures to stick to the widest path. Peter carries on for a good stretch of time, half of him focussed on shadowing the way and the other half enamoured by the intricate stonework, before he is blinded by the sun. He groans at the shock and when his eyes adjust, he sees her there.

MJ is surrounded by monarch butterflies, cradled by orange blossoms and matching wings. She hasn’t noticed him yet, and so Peter can guiltlessly absorb the striking view of her. Her fingers toy with the butterflies, and they flit around her like winking stars, in and out of grasp. The black hat usually kept atop her head hangs behind her, the chinstrap around her neck. The sun shines golden behind her figure and makes her wispy curls appear gilded. A giggle escapes her and Peter genuinely smiles at the sight. For once, she is not at all intimidating—she is inviting and splendid, sparkling in the sunlight. She is so many things and Peter is only one: undeserving. No one is good enough to receive something so significant like MJ in this moment. 

MJ is too good to be true, in Peter’s eyes, here in the forgotten dunes. When the butterfly that she was holding in her hand escapes and flies towards Peter, she finally notices his presence. 

He expects her to lash out and be angry at him intruding her private moment, but she keeps him on his toes and proves him wrong. Instead, MJ asks for him to come here and when he does, she shares the treasure with him. She’s still laughing and Peter can see how white her smile is. Her brown skin is glowing in the afternoon light, the pigment of melanin taking in the rays. She is stunning. Peter realizes he is meant to be watching the monarch butterfly that she is trying to pass to him but he can’t take his eyes off her. 

MJ pulls his hand into her own, and exchanges him a butterfly. "They migrate in the fall," and her voice is so quiet and fragile, so as not to disturb the peace that was created around them. It’s so small, he is afraid he will crush it. He looks up into her eyes, and he feels warm all the way down to his toes. Peter can feel his eyes crinkle, his smile is comfortably tight, and he’s happy about her trust in him. A butterfly circles her head like a halo, and he tilts his head up to see it better. Noticing the wild locks of her hair, he tucks her long bangs behind an ear, and with it a butterfly lands, imitating a flower pin. His smile stretches wider and his hand drops to hug at her waist while he steps closer. 

At this angle, he can see the reflection of the orange creatures in her eyes, dancing amongst the coppery flecks. From her stature above him, she has to glance low to meet his eyes. 

When a butterfly comes and lands on his nose, their laughter breaks the intimacy of the moment. The insects flap away, frightened by the melodious rings of their joy. 

“Guess that’s our sign to head out, huh?” MJ comments. Peter’s heart is still racing from the minute before and it is trying to claw itself out of the burning of his chest. What has happened to him? He has no idea where all this has come out of.

Peter decides that this week is most definitely wrought from fire and hell, and he goddamn loves it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a lil hard to write but its twice as long as the other chapters so i hope you enjoy :))) big love to everyone who reads/comments/kudos i really really appreciate it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! s/o to femmelillies for reminding me to cut my bullshit and Liah for the suggestions! hopefully i do you all justice. disclaimers:
> 
> 1\. i dont believe that people have a right to access guns, but politics aside, it be like it do  
> 2\. i took a long time writing this bc i ended up visiting arizona during my vacation and i'm embarrassed to say that i made some poor assumptions on the land and indigenous groups that are historically incorrect and threw me for a block. i really want this story to have integrity and accuracy and the fact that i didn't even name the land to the correct cultures was ignorant of me. so i'll be going back to edit in new names, but it won't shift the plot at all
> 
> enjoy!

Upon returning to Ned, exchanging the medicinal weed and bidding goodbye, MJ is prepared to be get and gone with. Peter has other plans.

Coerced into a private conversation, or what they believe to be private, seeing as MJ is only two yards away, Ned speaks to him in what could essentially be labelled as a stage whisper. They don’t notice her listening in and it may be because MJ was blessed with this unusual ability where her face’s natural resting position appears uncaring. To be fair, most of the time she does feel an adrenaline that can only be described as spiteful, offensive even. She likes to think of it as a work hazard, seeing as she is an outlawed bounty hunter.

In the beginning, she wasn’t listening at all, actually. But their unsubtle loudness is unavoidable. The beginning is dry enough that it passes in one ear only to leave through the other. Then there is a shift in conversation that goes something along the lines of Ned hinting to Peter that “Out here in the wild, people aren’t who you think they are. Don’t believe what people tell you, look at it all critically. That’s the only way you’ll discover who someone really is.”

Peter, daft as he is, mutters a slow “sure, will do,” because he doesn’t really understand what that means, nor why Ned is telling him to do so.

MJ is going to kick Ned’s ass the next time she is alone with him.

At the same time, she’s not entirely too surprised that Peter hasn’t picked up on her identity yet. They still have a couple days until she inevitably _has_ to reveal herself in Agua Prieta, but for now it’s almost a game to her. She can’t blame him—girls like her don’t get to wear pants or flaunty, scandalous corsets. Bare shoulders are only shown to husbands surrounded by four walls in a Christian town like Safford. They don’t get to tame wild horses and chase even wilder men. Girls like her aren’t allowed to let their hair down, go in public without rouge and paints on their face, let alone carry guns and kill men. The only red ever seen on MJ Watson’s face is blood.

Hell, she shares nothing with Michelle; her face is brutal and grey from the dust collected over her black skin, hair unkempt, almost nappy. She has spurs and daggers hidden in sheaths. Even her voice is different, Michelle is melodic and kind with her words. All that a perfect lady would be. MJ has a gravelly, low and unbothered twang to her curses. Save for bone structure, she supposes they do not have much else in common. If her own father couldn’t recognize her as MJ, then she isn’t surprised that at the moment, the junior deputy can’t either.

It appears that Ned is done gassing Peter up, and when she sees them give a humble handshake, she mounts her horse in preparation to leave. When she turns her head back around again, the measly joining of hands has turned into a tight and smacking hug. She sighs, endeared and frustrated all the same at their hearty immaturity.

Once they are off and settled on their own, Peter is mum about it all. He does not say a word and she finds his silence one degree short of troubling.

In their own time, life moves on from its indulgent moments with her old friend Ned, and her newfound partnership with Peter. She isn’t quite sure where she stands with him. A small, fractional, nearly non-existent part of her likes him, likes his company. She thinks that part of her is Michelle bleeding through to her second life, and she hates that. Hates him in fact. Which moves her on to the rest of her feelings, every other emotion that could possibly brew within her is so irritated by his joining her that it completely overrides what inkling of enjoyment she has. Had Peter never volunteered to ruin her life, she’d never have to be on her toes. MJ was created so that she could relax and be free from fragments of her dubious reality in Safford, with him following her she cannot have that peace.

To interrupt the momentum of thoughts that slowly trickle towards negativity, MJ strikes up a new one. “I hope you know you should be prepared to kill a man.”

Peter slumps out a crackling cough. “Pardon me, what?”

“If you want to protect me—or rather, yourself—you’re going to have to be prepared to kill someone. Y’know, just in case.”

“Peter Parker does not kill people.” It’s said with a finality that MJ doubts she can defile.

But she can toy with it, at least. “Right, but MJ Watson ain’t have the patience for you to die on her mid-trouble,” she lampoons.

His eyes narrow at her crudeness, “I’m prepared to protect myself, and you if I must—”

“Oh you must, alright.”

“But I’m not going to kill someone. That’s exactly the reason why jail cells exist.”

Tired, MJ says “so the thing about being ‘wanted: dead or alive’ is the convenience factor. It is so much easier to drag back a dead body for the cash out. Much quieter, too.”

“No wonder why you are hardly a conversationalist.”

“I’d like to call it efficiency, but that works too. How comfortable are you with your gun?”

“It’s okay, I guess.”

“Only okay? That thing should be your baby. I have put so much thought into each gun that I own.” She studies him with a pensive method. “Show me yours.” He does. “Well, I’ll be damned. Parker, that’s a standard issued revolver.”

“So what? It works, dunnit?” Peter slushes over his defenses.

Her thick eyebrows flick up to graze her hairline. “There’s no style! Uniqueness! It’d be like wearing communal underpants.”

Peter does not make any effort in hiding his disgust. “That is not at all the same.” 

To her, it sounds like this dispute will go nowhere. The two of them are equally stubborn, which is fine. She can tolerate it. If one were to ask anyone who knew MJ if she was a hypocrite, not a single person would say yes. That said, she’s not letting Peter win this, so she ruminates over every known statistic to back up her discourse. “It’s practically proven fact that a gun-owner who has a connection to their tools performs better. The guy that assassinated James Garfield chose his gun solely on what would look snappy in a museum. Now that may be morbid, but it is effective.”

“How was I supposed to know that? It’s not like I’ve been in a shootout before.”

“Wh-you- how in high hell have you never been in a shootout? You’re a cop. That’s literally your job.”

“The opportunity has never arisen! It’s not like I’m out there actively _looking_ for one.”

“Goddamn, they really just let any sore boy get a job without a single qualification.” She halts, pausing to study him. “I think you should go home.”

“Now? It’s way too late for you to decide that.”

“Well, I just don’t feel safe with some no name kid behind me who ain’t never been in a real fight before. At this point, you’re more weight than I can carry. You’d probably be some trigger-happy idiot and shoot me upside the head. Or worse off, get cold feet and not even turn the safety off.”

“Then teach me!”

“Teach you.” It’s half a question, one quarter doubtful and another disdainful.

“Exactly. If you show me how then I can support you. You know I can do it. Face it, I’m worth more to you than you care to admit.”

To save herself from having to reveal her true thoughts she gives in. “If it’ll get you to stop scrambling and whining, fine.”

He’s positively radiant with the beam that shines at her agreement. “When do we start?”

“Best to get it over with. So, what do you know about your gun?” When she dismounts from her horse, Peter follows suit.

“It’s uh-.32 caliber?” Peter removes his Stetson to wipe sweat away from his pale forehead with his sleeve, and Michelle follows the motion. When he notices her considering him, he only raises his eyebrows in curiosity.

“Sorry, are you answering me or asking me a question?” Her eyes flick around, observing his face as if all the answers were scribed onto him like hieroglyphs.

They’re standing under the scorching stare of the sun. She has directed them out of the swords of the pass and back on the edge of the desert. Red rock cliffs have deteriorated and created folds of sand banks the colour of aged wax. There is a haze in the air that Michelle never really knows for certain where it comes from. Joshua trees poke out around them, thistle scattered underneath their feet. “First thing’s first: you’re holding a six-shooter gun.”  
  
“I know that.”  
  
“Good. Then what?”

“I turn the safety off?”  
  
She gestures for him to continue, unimpressed.    
  
“I shoot?”  
  
“Uh huh. And?”

“Shoot again.”  
  
“My lord, Parker. And is there anything you would do in between?”

“…Breathe?” He asks dubiously.

She brings the flat palm of her hand to lay flat against her forehead, removes her hat to fan herself, exasperated. “Biggest mistake you could make is to shoot without counting. You always need to count your shots.” For example she aims two feet above his head and counts her bullets. “1-2-3-4-5-6. If I didn’t count, I would waste them, maybe I do that before I realize I’d have only two bullets to kill four men. I know I might be good, but not _that_ good.”  
  
She instructs him on the rest of his flaws too, from his posture, to his mechanics, and to his accuracy too. They spend at most an hour on it, and he improves greatly, but once they use up enough ammunition for her to deem wasteful they move on.  
  
Next she teaches him to lasso. Despite the clear and formulaic instructions that she gives him, he still manages to blow it. Her constructive comments on this mean nothing for he never improves; Peter gets tangled up in the rope and becomes a jumbled bunch of disappointment.

“Here,” she stands behind him, one hand on his hip to straighten him out, the other around the wrist that’s holding the rope. MJ can feel the tension that brews when the slightest of touch exists between their bodies.

“Why is this so goddamn hard?” Peter stutters out, demoralized by their closeness.

His comment is a cue for her to move out of his space, let him try on his one. “Yeah, well, you don’t learn much if everything goes right the first try.”

The third attempt attests to be successful enough, and he fares to rustle up one of the cattle that is held for sample.

“By God, Tony would think I am so grand.”

“That is, by far, the lamest thing I have ever heard you say. That’s a long fuckin’ list, mate.”

His glee from the success fizzles out and he begrudgingly follows.

“Since you wasted all my bullets, we need to grab some on the way.”

“Where? I thought no one liked you out here.”

“No one likes me anywhere, but it’s fine. I know a place.” She mounts her stallion and nods upwards for Peter to follow suit. Michelle might not be a natural born leader, but she turned herself into one, it doesn’t hurt either that Peter is a blind follower to her commands, though. “Ever hijacked a train before?”

Peter laughs. “Ain’t that a knee-slapper. As if I would let you hijack a train. I’m on the force, remember? Besides, what would we do with the cattle.”

“Hmm, good point. Then we can go by horse, but I still want you to try train-hopping, for shits and gigs. Consider it part of your training.” And the trouble continues, as if MJ was a natural disaster who wrecked everywhere she came across, because once they get to a long stretch of distance where they could still see their horses from where they will end up.

“Oh god,” Peter snivels, unnerved.

“Ready for the best moment of your goddamn life? It’s called the ‘Train of Death’ migrants from over the border use it to come to America.”

“You see, things would be so much easier for me if you never told me the cultural names that are really more like threats and warnings. The ‘Train of Death’ is the kind of thing that a person with even a cell of survival instinct would avoid.”

“Good thing I don’t have a single one. Let’s go.” She grabs him by the hand and hauls him towards the moving train. “It goes like this, watch me. You’re gonna take a running start, grab hold of the platform and heave yourself over like you would a fence.” And all too quick she’s gone off and gripped the train car and finesses her way on board. “Hurry up!”

The train isn’t moving spectacularly fast, so Peter thinks he might just make it. When he runs, jumps, lands, it isn’t nearly as graceful as when MJ did it, but he made it alright. Then the adrenaline kicks off and the chemicals in his brain scatter like bats disturbed out of their slumber in a cave.

They sit to admire the first moments of sundown over the infinite horizon that stretches past her peripheral vision.

“I’ve never been on a train before.” His confession sits heavy in the air. She isn’t staggered. After Ben died, the Parker household didn’t have much room for disposable income, and anything Peter bought from trading cities were from months of saving. Though it did help that he was a deputy, at least his uniform gave him some sort of discount out of respect. And Tony basically sponsored him at this point, but she likes to think it’s because of Aunt May’s loveliness than Peter’s potential for humour’s sake. She knows he hasn’t travelled much, though luckily her and Harry were able to spend a summer travelling to the East Coast once she finished her schooling.

“Cross it off your list, then.” In her peripheries again, she can see Peter watching her closely, but she chooses to ignore it, facing the sunset over her feelings.

Enough time has passed for her to be able to call this a success, so she announces a “ready?” and even before he can answer she pushes him off with her and they roll off together, lacking poise. Dust stirs up around them until gravity works and they slow.

In a matter of circumstances, MJ rolls so that conveniently she’s on top of him, straddling his lap and her escaping curls dance from where she leans over Peter. Her hands stretched out on him for stabilization. She can’t look him in the eye, not at all, purely due to pride. But then self-discipline disappears and she gives in, channeling forward to face him.

Peter is looking at her in a way that she has never seen him look at anyone else before. Not longingly, but instead inquisitively—as if she were neither ally nor outlaw, only someone estranged from him who has returned from years swept away by a celestial tragedy. A curiosity sweeps his face like she is someone he knew in another life, where they fought dragons instead of each other. MJ forgets all about Michelle in this moment, and it seems Peter has, too. 

Peter’s one hand slides to cradle her at the crook of her hip that meets with her behind. The other tangles in her hair and together it makes her feel very, very warm. 

The sun dampens out behind them and with it fall colours that blend like melted wax. A whistle from the train is audible from miles away, a cooling breeze is felt by MJ from her bare shoulders and it offsets the heat in her cheeks. But nothing exists around them but each other. They’re so wrapped up in one another that the world feels soft and blurry and becomes white noise to the vivid sensation of the two together.

But nothing happens, because MJ wakes up from their dreamlike state, realizes she is sitting heavy over his crotch, and worst off: enjoying it. So that hands that are splayed out on his chest for support and simultaneously counting over his heartbeat, ball up his shirt in fists by way of saying goodbye and she rolls over and lies by his side.

“We need to not. I mean, we should go.” She hates how slow she sounds, like her tongue is swollen in her mouth.

She keeps her stash of guns hidden inside a mine that was deserted after an explosion which killed two dozen workers. The rumour of it being haunted is one perfect security guard, and its distance from civilization makes its match. After peeling what they need off the walls and onto their horses they return to the dozen cattle and stride back deep into the Pass.

The sun has nearly set in full and the only evidence that it ever existed before is the seeping violet that blurs into the indigo which settles into midnight. Stars dot along the sky uninterrupted by the lights of society. The efforts of today take toll on their bodies and they set a small, makeshift camp for themselves. He heats up food for her and she filters water, and together they seem very okay.

“You sleep first,” Peter offers. He turns to give her privacy, sets out to groom his steed only a few strides away.

Settling back against a dead and thinning log, Michelle relaxes into her improvised bed for the night. She takes one last look at Peter before coasting into a world of sleep. While her rest is deep, it doesn’t last long. In a matter of time she will later be told was only twenty five minutes, she wakes to the pattering feel of needles on her legs and the prickles crawl up until it introduces itself with her neck.

Her eyes peel open only to recognize that the needles are in fact insipid and gold scorpions with beady bodies that flash orange then black in reflections of flames. A scream tears out of her throat and Michelle blanches. In an attempt to scurry out of the range of the arachnids, she heaves herself backward, all weight on her palms and her heels driving her backwards and unfortunately, further into the decaying mass that serves as their nest.

If she had to guess, there must have been at least 30 all over her, 50 if you include what exists on the fallen tree. None are longer than three or four inches, but what they lack in size they make up for in sheer numbers. She thinks she recognizes them, Arizona Bark Scorpions. Just her luck, the only poisonous scorpion in all of America. Her harrowing screams pull Peter out of his cruising thoughts and back into real life. In seconds, he scales the floor, jumps to her saviour. In moments that play slower than real time, he is able to rip a thick branch from the log itself, shake the arachnids off and into the fire, all while he tugs his flannel sleeve. The fabric rips and he binds it on the Y-shaped end of the branch, dips it into the fire so it bursts into a spectacular flame.

Peter waves it over her like the flag of a prideful ship, crude and wild. The heat nips at the scorpions and hover too close to her body but never actually touching her. The dangerous temperatures are enough to scare away the monstrous pests. Once the last one has scurried off her leg, the cotton that filled her head fuzzes out and she can think, breathe, live in peace again.

The shock gives out and she looks up at Peter, who is now tearing off the opposite shoulder and arm to his already unbuttoned flannel shirt. It uncovers a white undershirt already dirty from sweat and dust and the lack of sleeves reveal toned arms wiry with muscle. He isn’t looking at her, and she’s grateful, because it spares her more time to soak in his handsomeness. His innocent and warm brown eyes are deceiving as she never thought that the rest of poor Peter Parker is a tragic case of exquisiteness. What used to be pale skin is tan from the hours under the sun, freckles enhanced too. His usually cropped and neat hair is a dangerous spilling of curls that perfectly frame the cutting edges of his face. Rather than seeing him as too skinny or frail, she instead sees the work he has put into his lean body. The sharp incisions that are his collarbones are something fantastic and the low hanging, ripped jeans are accentuated by the subtle V that forces one to contemplate what of him exists even lower.

“Stop staring at me.” Perception was not something that Michelle would have labelled him, in fact she thought him to be rather dense, but as of late Peter proves to be a renaissance man: brave, observant, roguishly beautiful. She can't believe she didn't notice it before.

“I can’t,” she says.

He husks in displeasure, “you what now?”

“I can’t stop staring,” she repeats, “you’re actually fucking hot.”

His eyebrows shoot up, face red, eyes wide. And then, just as quickly as he previously came to her rescue, the boyish features shut out. They evolve into a vicious look, scrutinizing her. “You shouldn’t reduce me like that. I’m no oil painting, but at least I have some self-respect.” Peter’s near black eyes go from staring her down to flicking away, as if even MJ was not worthy of his gaze. Abruptly, he walks in the other direction, to a nothingness she has never known to subsist.

“Where are you going?” She calls for him.

Peter gives her a slighted look that she cannot read. Michelle doesn’t like that. Peter knowing things that she doesn’t. Every other moment in their lives she knows almost exactly what he is thinking, how he feels. Now? Not at all. The void of her understanding is filled by a bitterness that tastes like bile. “For a walk.”

“You can’t just leave me alone after that!”

“What, are you scared?” It’s both mocking and incredulous. Peter, like everyone else in the world, believed MJ to be fearless, and she almost is… except for, yeah, those _things_.

“ _No_ ,” she spits defensively.

“Perfect, then you’ll be fine.”

Michelle, decidedly, is not fine. Given a mere two minutes alone, only accompanied by the resting cows, a dim fire, and the memory of a thousand crawling demons, she folds. One last look, and she reluctantly follows where he left her.

It doesn’t take long for him to notice his second shadow. “Why are you following me?” He huffs, but he never stops to face her, only trudges further into a place that shouldn’t exist.

“I-I don’t want to be alone.” It’s not something she is used to, needing another’s company.

“Did you ever think about whether or not I wanted to be left alone? You know, since I purposefully walked away from you, alone. Into the pass, alone.”

Not sure what to say, she stumbles. Both figuratively and literally, as she trips over the loose roots and brambles following his steady steps. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He stops. The moon serves to be the light for his stage, the black sky his curtains.

When she stands closer, just arm’s reach away, he still refuses to turn and face her. Only when she reaches to his shoulder, pulls until he is forced to meet her does Peter relent. “Everything.”

He is unsatisfied by her scapegoat of an answer. “You… you just make me so livid, Watson. Beyond doubt, you’re infuriating. You don’t even realize how painfully exhausting it is for the… the  _push and pull_ you do with people. I don’t know where I stand with you. I feel—” he exhales a shuddering breath, but the rant continues. “I feel addle-headed trying to understand you. You make me feel used, or-or like an accessory to you of some sorts. I’m not your disposable sidekick. And then I’m all-overish because I don’t know how to exist around you. God, I’m just mad enough to bite myself.”

Michelle can see the emotion in his eyes and it’s truly chilling. What used to be an easy smile, sometimes a look of surprise or excitement, nervousness maybe, has frozen over into a steeliness she has only ever seen on men who have blood on their hands. A look she has seen in her own eyes, and it terrifies her.

“Peter…” Something snaps, his eyes drip with a seething venom, more wicked than whatever poison that existed in the bites of a scorpion. He takes the hand that clings to his shoulder, wrenches her even closer into his atmosphere so that she spills into his chest. Her other hand flies up, as if to protect herself from the fall. His actions suck the life out of her, the air from her lungs withdrawn, robbed.

“Don’t call me Peter,” he demands lowly, and the breath that he stole from her returns when his lips ghost her mouth. She can’t react, too stunned by his forwardness, but when his hand tugs at her loose curls a force awakens. MJ curls into his touch, meeting each action with her own despairing passions. No longer does she feel like he has pushed her into a corner of guilt where pleasure was unreachable. Now she feels like he put her on a throne made of wrought iron, beaten by hammers and holy by legend. His fervent kissing does not trigger a cataclysmic epiphany like she thought love might feel like, nor does it send her into a lullaby of good and sweet affection. Instead the beautiful bite of his lips against hers resembles the cross-stitching of a trained hand into quilting fabric. It’s hot and seamless. And there’s that feeling again, the one where she is absolutely swimming at the effortlessness of it all. MJ is woven between the patterns he laces with the ease only someone who has kissed her like this in many different moments before could have, with the expertise of a lover who was born to fall into a dark and dizzying life with her.

MJ feels like every minute spent with Peter until now was wasted, for she never spent time with him as enriching and cruel as this. A deep satisfaction in perfect punishment reminds her that it this not out of love, but rather hate. Peter doesn’t love MJ at all. He spent the moments before this telling her exactly what he hated most, actually. She feels it in his grasp, when he tugs at her hair to pull her away, throw her against the bridge before hell, exactly where she belongs. But the grip of her neck in his hands brings her ever more hidden into the entrenching command he holds over her weakening heart. Before this, MJ felt like she always had the upper-hand; even as Michelle, Peter fell like a pawn to the Queen’s feet. Yet here, in the withering heat of his mouth that licks into her own, MJ was torn into two elements: one was eagerness for their future. The other—distress—or the very same reason. Never has she felt so wickedly weak in the arms of a man, never has she wanted to surrender herself into this. But when a ripping figure possesses Peter, she allows all agency previously acquired to evaporate into the saccharine poison of that which drips from his tantalizing tongue.

And just like when the first uttering of his name had caused a shift so drastic one would think the axis of the world went 90° off its natural stability, her whispering of “Peter” against his lips ensues an imbalance of the tangible. His furious, fuming, focussed kiss is extinguished. What is left is a melted boy who now clings to MJ for vitality. The ferocity devolves into a languid and swaying meeting of tongue, of lip. Eyes blown, blood thin, hands icy by the overstimulation. He vibrates with need.

And if ecstasy could be personified, MJ thinks Peter might be it.

But life is not meant to be spent in the arms of each other until the oceans dry up and the sky is no longer blue, for true existence is never perfect, and decadence must always come to an end. Interrupted by the staccato yelps of the cattle, she snaps her neck back, out of Peter’s reach. “Did you hear that?”

“Hmm?” He is still pathetically dreamlighting, chasing her lips, a syrupy smile on his face.

“The cattle, you imbecile. Lord, how thick are you? We need to go back.” She wants it to come out harsh, biting, but if he ever thought to listen closer, Peter would discover that the haughtiness was masked by a pesky version of longingness.

“You’re the one that left the cattle.” He squints at her, deploring. His hands untangle themselves and so they return to a world blinded by hatred yet again.

“Because you left me!” Her accusation rips out of her—desperate, angry.

“Don’t spin this on me, okay? I did nothing wrong here.” 

“Fuck!” MJ’s fury burns away at her chest. “Fuck, I goddamn hate this. We need to go to Fort Bowie… Fuck this, fuck the cattle, fuck Flash, fuck me, fuck you.” A finger stabs at his chest.

Peter has the gall to laugh. “Surely, not in that order, miss.”

She sucks in a horrified gasp at his crudeness but it is quickly expelled after two beats. Two beats is all that is needed to smack the anxiety and a confused laugh empties out of her in its place. It rings in his ears and echoes in the deserted valley of dry tears behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

When Peter dies, he wants his gravestone to say “ _Here lies Dep. Peter B. Parker: death by feelings”_ because that’s how he thinks he is going to go. MJ and any audience watching would see how pathetically confused Peter is when it comes to women and believe it were to be his cause of death. That, or the world swallows him up without a trace and no one will notice to begin with. He can’t tell which is worse.

First off, things were great. Peter had his first kiss—at 17 but who is to judge, Safford is small and so is he. It went well, fantastic even. But then it went sour, because Peter _liked it_ and he resolutely does not like MJ, not at all and he never will. She leads him on and is insulting and quite frankly, he thinks her ingenuity to be a complete turn off. He thought this week would be a tiresome but professional draw of work. Clearly this isn’t what he planned, and it doesn’t appear possible for things to go back to how it was. Peter feels like his entire relationship with Watson flipped off-kilter. Sure, he is back to hating her, but now he is incredibly attracted to her soft skin that contrasts with her hard demeanor. The complexity of their situation might have been inevitable, he guesses, because when someone shoves their tongue down the throat of their enemy, it would be all too easy to simply carry on as if nothing happened.

He wonders if that’s how MJ will deal with it, like it was something to be disremembered. Even if Peter tried, he doesn’t think he could shake what could be the most earth-shattering moment of his life, but that is beside the point. Sure, alright, the kiss was good. Better than good, not that anyone asked. Probably bordering closer to indescribable than anything. Each time he asks himself the answer changes.

But in all, what ruins him for any other person in the rest of what his sad, sad life will entail is that there will never be a passion that could rival how strongly he feels about MJ herself. Good or bad or both, he cannot decide. But whatever it is, it is wildly intense. He fondly remembers how his fingers felt wrapped in her hair, what she sounded like when she hummed against his mouth. He will never forget the spurring of his nervous system when she called for him. How dare she act so familiar with him, say his name like it was the first word she had ever spoken, how it will definitely be her last as well.

It is too tempting to fall victim to this illusion called love, if even. Maybe how he feels is closer to confusion. He knows there is something supernatural between them. Should all he know in his life be based on the minutes poured from a cruel and generous heaven, then he should know all there is to be. MJ Watson is the main ingredient in his recipe for demise.

All too soon, this palpable magic is wafted out of his air and she speaks. “Before we get there, I need to tell you something.” Peter waits for it, the big bang. “If something happens to me, I want you to turn around. Don’t go to the border, there ain’t nothing for you there. Just go home.”

His sight wanders. He spent the last many hours carefully avoiding looking at her, and now that he sees her again, he honestly doesn’t believe he could ever stop. Watching her pensive yet grave demeanor, both hard and soft at the same time, he can’t believe he ever stopped. “MJ, I could never.”

“But you’ll have to. You best go right on home to Safford. If I see that you don’t listen to me, there will be some serious haunting.”

Peter wants to laugh, but the weight of her words makes his mouth too heavy to tilt upwards.

“I’m not leaving you there. If you get stuck in a rut, then I’ll be damned if I didn’t do a thing to get you out.”

“Parker…” She warns.

“No really, I couldn’t live with myself afterwards.”

“Please, listen to me. You need to go back to Safford, May will be waiting.” This is monumental now, MJ has probably never said please before in her life.

He reaches back to rub at his neck, head down, deciding which is the lesser of two evils. May means more to him than words can say, but to return home empty handed would crush her, let alone the rest of the town. He wants to pretend that if he never went back, the city and May would pronounce him a hero dead for legends. In reality, his disappearance would not make a dent in the atmosphere of his home town. Exactly two people would care, it seems. One is a blood relative, the other is a philanthropist who kind of likes Peter for reasons unknown.

“I’m telling you this as a disclaimer. Someone there wants me dead. He ain’t a good guy, even though he might look it. I know it was either him or his henchmen that took the cattle, but he has a daughter who cares for the animals, so she’ll probably be keeping a close eye on them. I need you to distract her and when I give the signal, you get out of there fast as you can and you meet me right back here, alright?”

“How do I distract her?”

“I don’t know. That sounds like a you problem.”

“And the signal?”

“I’ll probably have to do some improvising there, but you’ll know.”

“Sure,” he says, words heavy with doubt. In actuality, it isn’t so much the plan or the signal he is wary of. Instead it’s the act of her separating from him. Her departure fills him with anxiety because it feels like he is laid into a mess every time she leaves him. Unfortunately, since meeting with MJ, his life has spun into a quickly unravelling knit where loose ends get caught in danger and the yarn tangles with confusion and hurt.

He doesn’t know when he became so dependent on her. He had never really been fully dependent on anyone in his life, he took care of himself for the most part and when he couldn’t, May could. Or Mr. Stark. But never was he inseparable.

The shade of the dry and overhanging branches fan out and reveals the borders of the small trading town. From here, the wagons look like ants and the houses look like pebbles. “God, I fucking hate this place. Fort Bowie: where life has no value.”

Peter exhales and the air that falls out of him weighs a half-tonne. “The same goes for me.”

The look she gives tells him she doesn’t understand.

“The same goes for me,” he repeats. “If something happens to me, you keep going.” In another world, MJ would be inseparable from him in the same way that he needs her. Reality says otherwise, and it’s obvious that she could easily carry on in a way that Peter never could.

He knows this because she doesn’t argue at all. For once, she has no protests, and only gives him a curt nod, eyes downcast. She does say that she will see him soon. And he says for her to make good choices.

All she does is laugh.

\---

It’s a tribulation to leave her, harder so when he knows that he has to connive his way around here to get what she wants. What he needs. Tough to assume guilt for this when Peter know he needs this as much as she does, and that underneath it all, it was his fault that got them here in the first place. And for what? Peter knows less now than he ever did before.  

Some people hold their cards close to their chest; MJ eats hers.

Enough land has passed that he figures he’s just on the outskirts of where he should expect the man’s daughter to be. In a field where he sees the dozen graze and a wire fence surrounding, he searches for whoever could be the face to fall victim.

He sees her, then. The light bounces off her shining hair like a halo, and her thin, billowy maiden’s dress looks equally as heavenly. She’s bending over to feed a flock of hens with seed, unknowing of her shadow. It’s not until Peter clears his throat does she see him.

“Oh! Hi,” she says, shyly.

“Good afternoon, I’m Deputy Peter Parker and I need to call in a favour.” He says this in the most official and prompt fashion he can muster up.

“A favour? I hardly know you,” she counters dubiously.

“Well, you can know me, if you want. And I’m a man of the law,” he pulls his badge out of his pocket as proof. “Surely, you could trust a man of the law.”

“I’d hate to leave you helpless…” Her eyes sweep the ground while she evaluates her morals. She gives in and holds out a firm hand, “I’m Elizabeth, what can I do for you?”

Peter shakes her hand, but he doesn’t let go. “Is there any place you could keep me in hiding? There are men after me, bad men, and I need to stay out of sight until I can catch them off their feet.”

Elizabeth puts on a thoughtful face, then sweetly, “would the barn be alright with you?” She gestures to an old wooden barn with its paint peeling, but other than that it looks completely sturdy.

“That looks perfect.” He gives her a steadfast nod, “You’re so shy, how could a girl as fine as you be so shy around someone as plain as me?” Peter couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he became brave around women, but it suspiciously happens around the same time he’d been digging around MJ. Or maybe it’s because he’s here on a mission, not truly playing himself but rather a character. The more he thinks about it, the more his chest swells up in dignity. Her hand makes a swift movement to tuck her hair behind her ear, she notices too.

“We, uhm, we don’t have many men my age here in Fort Bowie. People come in and out quick since it’s a trading town but no one ever stays. And I hardly see anyone when I’m working so out of people’s way.” She tucks her hair primly behind her ear, still not making eye contact and focussing only on the rise and fall of his chest. It wasn’t intentional that he is still wearing that sleeveless torn shirt, but he thinks it helps his case.

“Well, let’s be off then.” He suggests, and she leads him with their hands still intertwined between them. Elizabeth is adorably trusting and Peter feels a weight guilt eat up at him because he already knows he’s going to disappoint her.

Once they enter the barn, it’s lit through the crow’s nest window. A golden ray that shines down onto each freckle of floating dust illuminate them as if stars could still be seen in daylight. There is a hay stuffed cot that is tucked not far from the entrance and she sits him down, then, coyly she joins him.

“So, Deputy—”

Except he interrupts her to say, “Peter is just fine, Ms. Elizabeth.”

“Then you may call me Liz.”

“Of course, Liz.” Her smile warms his heart; she really is an attractive girl. 

“Who is after you? How did you get yourself into this predicament?”

“I-er… I’ve been set up by cattle rustlers and was driven off the Apache Pass,” he swallows. The lie doesn’t come up easy; instead it rises like bile that burns acidic up his throat. “There was at least a baker’s dozen and I couldn’t trust myself to handle them myself. I’m waiting for my back up as we speak.”

“I hope you are not out here all alone. Who is your back up? Another Deputy?” She seems genuinely concerned and if Peter had met her back in Safford, he could see the potential for her to make his head turn.

Peter takes a moment to decide how much truth is too much, “She is nobody you might know.” He doesn’t think that was the right answer, and he wants to fade into the air unnoticed. Saying this is so ominous and he doesn’t want her to lose the trust she has with him.

But she doesn’t notice for she pays too much attention to another detail: “Oh, it’s a her.” Her gentle glow dims but never dissipates.

Something rushes through him, it feels just short of embarrassment, like Liz had caught him in a compromising position. It’s not that Peter wants to hide what happened with MJ, but it certainly isn’t the kind to advertise. In fact, he hasn’t even had the grace of time to fully digest it, but that could also be due to him lacking the bravery needed to do so. He pushes all ideas into crates packed in the back of his mind. “No, not like that. She proper hates me… or so I think, at least.” The defences come up strong as he cloaks all emotions.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Liz’s hand hovers over his knee and when his gaze connects with her own, Peter feels strings tighten in his heart, the same strings that another woman had wound thrice over and into loops and knots. He can feel it constrict and ball up and nothing makes any sense.

Her open and wide eyes are too easy to look into, and Peter can feel her lean impossibly closer. He cherishes how easy it is to exist around Liz, she is simple and says everything that she thinks. He doesn’t have to constantly guess and toe at the lines. “Please, don’t worry about me, love.”

Liz is wholly alluring as she amends herself to hover just over Peter, whose weight has shifted to fall back and increase some distance. Something about Liz feels forbidden, despite the temptation. His elbows stagger behind him as she towers over him empowered. With her height over him, he is small and sunken into the hay of the cot.

She acts with a confidence that has yet to feel burdened and it makes Peter wonder about the rest of her life. Time has brought them into each other’s lives at this precise moment, and even though Peter knows exactly where he was each day leading up to this, he knows nothing of her own. Behind her dark brown eyes and even darker hair, behind the flush skin and soft angles of her face is a blank canvas. Perhaps that is what makes this so much simpler than when Peter is with MJ, because with Liz he doesn’t need to pretend; at least not with his own mind, but only with the situation.

Liz is almost entirely over him, and her right hand wanders as she searches his eyes. Peter is frozen, stuck in the shard of illusion. He can’t react to anything, only measures the pretty face in front of him. “Peter,” she says, and her sugary voice is too much. It’s disorienting, foreign. It sounds nothing like MJ. This level of pleasantry that files away at him is not at all what he is used to.

Odd, how Peter has had more intimate contact with women—plural—in the last few hours than he has in his whole life. It occurs to him that he is less of himself these days. He isn’t too quite sure on who he is now, or if it is even a person he likes, but Peter supposes that is part of the fun. Peter thinks he understands MJ’s need to wear a mask. It’s fun, almost.

And beyond this, beyond how agonizingly doe-like and forgiving Liz’s features are as they sweep over his face, he isn’t seeing _her_ so much as he is seeing _through_ her. Past that window through her revelation, Peter sees a figure much more willowy and sharp. The face is blurred and the pure elements are foggy, but he already knows who it is that he is looking at. It does not take one of impeccable knowledge to learn who the woman who truly haunts him is.

For every hour of the last couple of days, Peter has grown into a role where he is forced to play into another man’s part. He hates it, actually. Being a big man like Steve, or suave like Mr. Stark, or pensive and considerate like his Uncle Ben. It’s like he has been the understudy all until now, and then the curtain pulls back and he isn’t ready. Has no lines remembered, only stiff actions and nerves.

Before he can even think to react, Peter hears the gabbling squawk of a hundred chickens, and he supposes that would be the signal, so he ensnares Liz’s travelling hand upwards and pulls it off him. She mistakes it for a handhold and smiles sheepishly, continuing to crawl over him.

Hearing the double barn doors kick open, the couple snaps to gape at MJ who stands with her mouth an inch open and the eyes that are hidden behind the mask widen in shock. “Peter?” She questions, doubt clotting her veins as she absorbs their compromising position.

“Em! MJ, it really isn’t what it looks to be, I swear it.”

“It’s not?” Liz interferes, confusion radiates off her in waves and her hand limpens in his own.

MJ’s previous look of despair has vanished. “Right, well… I’ll be where we were to meet. Take your time.” Her voice drips with a corrosive acidity but it does nothing to colour the look of indifference that paints her face. It shocks Peter. He will never understand how impossibly cold she can appear when inside there is a coil of ire that could destroy the earth they share.

 “Who are you?” Liz asks, shocked and concerned.

“I-” Peter falters, he has no clue as to how to answer this. “I’m sorry,” he finalizes, because of anything, that’s all he really is underneath.

He chases after MJ, staggering as if he were three sheets to the wind.

Except it’s not MJ that is waiting for him on the other side of the doors. Underneath the flurry of feathers that fall around like the settling dust of snow are two men. One black and bald with a gun so elaborate it seems wasteful, and the other is grimy and bearded with dark ink that covers is freckled skin adorned by braces that wrap around his wrist and form into brass knuckles

“Make it easy for us, hey kid?” And all Peter feels is a gunshot to his thigh and shoulder before he melts into the ground. It is easy for them, because the weakened boy is easily thrown over the back of a horse and brought to town centre.

In and out of consciousness, Peter’s blinky sight is not nearly enough to protect himself. He is met face to face with someone he can’t quite pin down. Once the ringing in his ear settles and the adrenaline overcomes his pain, he almost feels like himself again.

Waiting for him is a man in a priest’s gown, cape hanging off the shoulder like black wings. He has thin, stringy hair, a curl to his lips, lucid blue eyes framed by creases. 

“Thought you’d bring the girl around with you.” A crackling voice mutters. The sound comes in through Peter’s left ear and fuzzes out of the right. His eyes are prickling and the world exists in leopard-like spots—here and there and sometimes nowhere at all.  

“What girl?” Peter asks around the pool of blood and spit in his mouth.

“Don’t play dumb for me kid.” The man grabs the collar of Peter, pulls him up to his own height. “Mess up my daughter into all of this is one thing—then lie right into my face. Disgusting.”

“’Dunno what you’re talking ‘bout.” Peter slurs.

The answer does nothing to appease the man. “Look, I can tell you’re a good kid, you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into. The things that happen round here aren’t simple enough for you. It ain’t just good guys versus bad guys. Everyone needs to make a living.” The grip loosens around his neck. “I can’t control what happens to other people, I just need to be in charge of the people that matter most. My people. My kid, my wife, my town. The others—they just matter a whole lot less to me. Surely you can get that?”

Peter can get that, but it doesn’t mean that its right. He only holds his gaze. “When you take things for yourself, you leave nothing for others. Give the dozen back to who it rightfully belongs to.” The words are strangled out of him. They sound small and wavering, but they feel right anyway.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the she-devil eats you alive and leaves your bones to dry.”

Speak of the devil, they say.

It’s a form of mocking, he thinks, when it isn’t a knight in shining white armour on a horse who saves him, but instead a bewitched woman in black with twelve cows. Life has never been generous enough for Peter to be blessed with fairy tales. One day he might take this into appreciation, but today is not that day. He can feel her decision before she acts on it, and it throws his stomach into a plane without gravity.

The priest turns Peter to fall into him, holds a pistol to his head and forces him into a chokehold. Peter still claws at the man’s “One step closer and loverboy gets it.”

“Good thing I won’t need another step, Father Toomes.” MJ flicks off her safety, aims her gun straight out from her chest with an unshaking hand. He’s never actually seen her kill someone before. They have always existed just outside of the other’s reach, never before being cursed with each other’s presence. In fact, Peter’s never seen anyone killed before, except once. He never accepted for killing another living, breathing, blood-brewing person either.

So he’s never done a lot of things, but he won’t start today.

Looking down her pipe, Peter’s thrown back into the moment of the last time he’d seen a dead body, who it belonged to. The memory loosens and he is swept by the waves of panic from years before. It’s heady and wraps around him, smarmy and suffocating. The panic crawls up and stretches a tunnel even bigger before in him. He feels it so fully that he wonders if the anxiety radiates off him in tangible waves. If she could feel it too, in the same way that he can feel whatever few emotions draft off of her.

One look at her tells him otherwise. She doesn’t feel it though, or if she did then she doesn’t care. The squinted eyes, unshaken posture. She looks the same as she would at any other moment, through the whole working week and her Sunday rest.

His eyes are bulging out from the lack of oxygen flowing to his head, but he just wants to close them, he doesn’t want to see anything at all. Not MJ, not the gun, not the memories. Just those spots the filter in and out between them, blanks that get lost somewhere in the injuries. “Em,” he pleads, “don’t do it.”

“Listen to your boy, Watson.” The arm around his neck tightens; MJ notices. 

 “I wish killing you could last a lifetime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to all who are sticking around! i finally hit yall w some plot for once. or at least half plot/half peter in his feelings for those wondering, yes i am continuing but im also back at uni so there's been a delay to my writing between school/work/volunteering so tysm for the patience!! speaking of i have an exam tomorrow so i will edit this again in the afternoon :)))
> 
> lots n lots n lots of love


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